Häkkinen believes he saw one of Bottas' best performances

" This Valtteri's performance is one of the best we've seen ». Mika Hakkinen, double world champion in 1998 and 1999 with McLaren is not stingy with compliments towards his compatriot Valtteri Bottas in his latest column for Unibet.

The Finn believes that the pilot Mercedes had all the cards in hand to win, a year after a cruel disappointment on this same Baku route.

“From the first lap, he completely controlled the race, continues Häkkinen. A few laps before the end, the race engineer told Lewis he could go hard, but even though he closed the gap, Valtteri responded. It was his race, and no one was going to steal it from him. »

As Ross Brawn, Motor Sports director of Liberty Media, admitted, the duel between the two residents of the star team “is open”, and Mika Häkkinen reminds that Bottas must not give up on his main opponent.

“He now leads the world championship by one point, the point he scored for the fastest lap in Melbourne at the start of the season. He knows that to beat Lewis Hamilton, every point counts, and that's how he approaches this match: winning when the opportunity presents itself, and obtaining the maximum points the other times. »

In this 100% Mercedes start to the season, Häkkinen specifies, however, that he expects to quickly review the Team Ferrari at the forefront. “The battle for the championship is currently taking place between the two Mercedes drivers.

Ferrari has a very fast car, but last weekend we saw that you can't afford to have crashes, tire temperature issues and just one car to take on two very competitive Mercedes drivers.

I am sure they will come back and attack Mercedes. Charles Leclerc learning all the time and showing how fast he is. Sebastian reacts to this too, and if they can manage the tension between them, they have the opportunity to challenge Mercedes for victories. »

Discover the full report and analysis of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, produced by our special correspondents in Baku, in issue 2214 of AUTOhebdo, available now in digital version and from this Thursday on newsstands.