Formula 1: Mika Hakkinen sends blunt warning to Verstappen & Hamilton over risks

Two-time Formula 1 world champion Mika Hakkinen has said that both Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton take ‘very heavy risks’ with their safety after a 2021 season pitted with controversial moments and high-profile crashes.

The 2021 campaign will live long in the memory with it seeing two generational talents going up against one another from the very first race in Bahrain to the very last in Abu Dhabi, right down, infamously, to the last lap.

Indeed, it was Verstappen who won out in the end but the title race swung back and forth over the course of the campaign, with several big incidents coming along the way, including one at Silverstone that saw Max hit the wall at over 50g and one at Monza where Verstappen’s Red Bull car bounced off of the halo and crash helmet of Lewis at turns one and two.

Such is the incredible levels of safety that we have in Formula 1, both drivers emerged relatively unscathed from both incidents and neither missed a race, but Hakkinen believes that has led to them taking big risks, and he has warned them that huge pain is just around the corner when it does go wrong, speaking from his own experience where a shunt in 1995 left him in hospital for two months.

“Is it my style to do things that those two drivers did? Not really, it is not my style and that is because I had a very bad accident,” Hakkinen said, as per PA News.

“I spent a lot of time in hospital and I know the pain when things go wrong.

“These two drivers, they don’t know that, so they do take risks, very heavy risks, and they rely a lot on the safety of the car and the safety of the track.”

Safety in Formula 1 is a hugely important factor and the levels of it these days have meant a dangerous sport now appears far less than that.

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