Mika Hakkinen sends Ferrari stark warning as Red Bull build championship lead

Former double world champion Mika Hakkinen has said that Ferrari must be aware that Red Bull are going to capitalise on any more mistakes or errors they have this season.

The Scuderia have had a really rough time of things in recent weeks, with their early-season form descending into reliability issues and the odd poor strategy call.

Indeed, Red Bull are now stretching their legs out in front at the top of the Constructors’ standings, and Max Verstappen now has a 34-point lead over Charles Leclerc.

For Mika, Ferrari need to be pretty much perfect for the rest of the year:

“Charles Leclerc must be wondering what he has to do to find some good luck,” said Hakkinen in his Unibet column.

“He has been on pole position for the last four races and his qualifying performance on Saturday was really brilliant. He got everything he could out of the car.

“I think we were going to see a really close battle for the race win because Max was certain he could close the gap on Charles, but we never got to see what would happen because of the Ferrari’s engine failure.

“Ferrari know that the last three races have been really critical as two engine issues and poor strategy have cost Charles potential victories in Spain, Monaco and Baku.

“To have both cars fail to finish is one thing, but on a day when Red Bull then scores a 1-2 finish to extend their lead in both the Drivers and Constructors World Championships is a disaster.

“It will be interesting to find out the reasons for the retirements of two other Ferrari-powered cars at Haas and Alfa Romeo, because if there is a particular problem it needs to be solved urgently.

“We are only three Grands Prix away from the mid-point of this year’s World Championship and Ferrari really have to get on