Ex-World Champion: 'De Vries deserves to be in Formula 1'

Mika Hakkinen enjoyed both of the Dutch in Sunday's Italian Grand Prix. Max Verstappen was able to drive from the seventh starting spot to victory unassisted, while Nyck de Vries drove to a neat ninth place on his debut in Formula 1. The performance of the latter is particularly admirable, according to the two-time world champion.

"Good job considering the experience that he has in Formula 1 and getting this kind of phone call you know normally you prepare yourself for the weekend with an operation and everything. So when that becomes the surprise at what he did he did a good job. He deserves to be in Formula One and did a super job. Made it got the points for the team was nearly half a second quicker than his teammate in the qualification yesterday so you know great job he did”, Hakkinen told Viaplay.

The grapes were sour for Nicholas Latifi, who was run down by an unprepared De Vries on both Saturday and Sunday. The Williams driver's position is highly uncertain and, while his performance seemed to improve for a while, it is back to being a nightmare after the summer break. "Must be, must be, painful, painful. But there must be super dissapointment (For Latifi) you know. I don’t know what is his explanations why he didn't do it better. But it doesn’t look good.”

Verstappen impresses

Hakkinen also commented on Max Verstappen's race. Within a lap, the 24-year-old driver was already in third place and after about nine laps he had fully caught up with leader Charles Leclerc. The Finn is impressed, although he himself knows how easy it is to drive when you have such a dominant car at your disposal.

"Absolutely (he drove through the field well) but they have such a good car. They had an unbelievable car, I know when I won my world championship for the first time in ‘98. The car was just incredible, I tell you. It did exactly what I wanted the car to do. So know when he is in a postion where he’s starting at the back of the grid due to penalties. It must be such a beautiful feeling to overtake a lot of cars wit ha comfortable way. That way so you don’t have to take too many risks," concludes Hakkinen.