Mika Hakkinen blasts Max Verstappen’s critics, claims one has to be ‘special’ to win nineteen races

Max Verstappen steamrolled his competiton in 2023.

Mika Hakkinen blasts Max Verstappen’s critics, claims one has to be ‘special’ to win nineteen races

Max Verstappen and Mika Hakkinen (Via IMAGO)

Max Verstappen, the reigning F1 world champion, had a dream run during the 2023 F1 season. He was on it from the get-go and was able to keep his completion in check pretty much throughout the campaign. While the sport is currently at a halt, former 2-time F1 world champion, Mika Hakkinen has applauded the Dutchman.

In recent times several of Max Verstappen’s critics have claimed that he could only win the 2023 title because of the might of Red Bull’s RB19. Mike Hakkinen does not agree with this one bit and has thus, recently come up with a witting response to all of Verstappen’s critics.

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Via his personal X handle, Hakkinen said via X;

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Seeing Max deliver the results he did this year, his pressure tolerance must be on a very high level. It takes a lot of focus to maintain the consistency of the results. I don't think it's just because the car and the team are so good. It takes something special from the driver.

Looking at the reaction of the 55-year-old, it is quite clear that he firmly believes that Max Verstappen is a special talent. Being a former racing driver himself, Hakkinen understands the pressure that an F1 driver has to face on a day-to-day basis, and this is something, that has impressed him the most about Verstappen.

Max Verstappen won an impressive 19 Grand Prix in 2023

While Mika Hakkinen has revealed that he is a huge admirer of Max Verstappen, the latter had the best season of his F1 career this year. The RB19 proved to be nothing short of a beast but its powers were increased 10-fold by the way Verstappen was able to put it through the absolute wringer.

Max Verstappen (Credits: Imago)
Max Verstappen (Credits: Imago)

Red Bull’s second driver, Sergio Perez, also had the same car underneath him, but despite this, he could not extract the kind of performance Verstappen could get out of it regularly. The Dutchman ended the 2023 campaign with a mammoth 575 points whereas Perez was only able to manage 265.

Moreover, Max Verstappen was able to amass a brilliant nineteen wins out of the twenty-two available. He operated on a whole new playing field this year and is going to come back all charged up for the 2024 season of the pinnacle of motor racing.

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