The 2024 F1 season has already begun after almost three months of hiatus with the first race in Bahrain this weekend. And many believe that Max Verstappen will cruise to his fourth world championship this year. However, two-time world champion Mika Hakkinen doesn’t think so. The former McLaren driver thinks that for the Dutchman to emulate his 2023-like dominance, it will depend on many factors.
Speaking in a video on his Instagram, Hakkinen said, “I don’t think Max will dominate. It depends on a lot of different things. But if Red Bull’s car is a superfast rocketship, then everyone else is in trouble.”
Hakkinen has mentioned in the caption of this post how he recorded this video before pre-season testing in Bahrain. Therefore, after watching Verstappen doing extremely well in the three days of testing in the RB20, Hakkinen is not sure about his prediction.
He felt that other teams like Mercedes, Ferrari, and McLaren may challenge Red Bull in 2024. Meanwhile, although Red Bull do not seem as dominant as last year, Hakkinen still believes that Verstappen is on another level with the car, describing it as having an “ecstasy of confidence”.
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Hence, the former Finnish driver believes that even if the rest of the teams were to have closed the gap to the Milton Keynes-based outfit this year, Vertappen’s ability to find additional pace will help him fend off his challengers. However, it is pertinent to note that Hakkinen does have a knack for getting predictions right.
Last year, he predicted McLaren to be Red Bull’s closest challengers. While the Woking-based outfit were way off the pace at the start of the 2023 campaign, they indeed did emerge as the Austrian team’s closest challengers towards the end of the year.
Mika Hakkinen made an audacious claim regarding McLaren last year
McLaren had an abysmal start to their 2023 season, to say the least. After both Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris ended the season opener in Bahrain with a DNF 12 months ago, rarely anyone would have predicted the Woking-based outfit to fight for podiums later in the season.
However, Mika Hakkinen predicted that McLaren will bounce back in 2023 despite having only 17 points after the first eight races of the year. Hakkinen said, “I think they will surprise us massively. Just in terms of the speed of the car, they will probably challenge Red Bull.”
And McLaren did indeed bounce back in some style. After a set of upgrades in Austria and Silverstone, both Norris and Piastri challenged Red Bull’s Max Verstappen week in and week out. So, with the kind of development McLaren made during the 2023 season, it is possible they can execute the same this year.
With a bolstered technical lineup with three heads of development, McLaren under Andrea Stella is looking to keep growing on its upward trajectory. Therefore, one cannot count out the team from Woking as one of the challengers for Red Bull this year.
