Hakkinen sees leads at Red Bull: "They gave Mercedes some worries".
General
- GPblog.com
Red Bull brought a number of updates last weekend that seemed to work well. During qualifying Max Verstappen was only a mere three tenths away from the best time. Mika Hakkinen sees that the improvements are working for Red Bull and hopes that Honda will continue to work for the Austrian team in the coming year despite their departure.
As usual, Verstappen was the only one who could stay close to Mercedes. The Dutchman even came closer on Saturday and for a moment there was talk of a possible first place to start. On Sunday Red Bull was still short compared to the German team and especially Lewis Hamilton. Hakkinen speaks in his column at Unibet about the progress of the team of Verstappen.
"Max Verstappen shows that Red Bull has continued to make progress in developing the car. Another strong performance with a second place but close enough to make Mercedes somewhat concerned".
Concerns about Formula 1
However, the former world champion is worried now that Honda is leaving: "With the announcement that Honda is leaving Formula 1, we must hope that the Japanese company is still fully committed to Red Bull for the rest of the year and next year. After all, they are the only team that poses a serious threat to Mercedes next year." Honda has already indicated that they will do everything they can for the world title next year as well. To do that, they will first have to close the gap with Mercedes even further.