Max Verstappen 'is in control of the championship' already, feels former McLaren driver

Max Verstappen is firmly in control of the 2022 F1 World Championship battle after nine rounds of racing, according to former driver Mika Hakkinen.

After nine rounds of racing in the ongoing campaign, the reigning world champion has secured seven podium places with six of them being wins. In comparison, Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez has only one win and Ferrari man Charles Leclerc has won only twice, in Bahrain and Melbourne. Incidentally, Verstappen retired from both those races.

Having turned the tide in the championship fight after falling behind in the early stages of the season, Max Verstappen now has the wind in his sail heading into Silverstone, as per Hakkinen. In his column for sports betting firm Unibet, the Finn wrote after the 2022 F1 Canadian GP:

“We did not have any doubt that Max [Verstappen] is in control of the championship before the weekend and the result in Montreal confirms that Red Bull’s package is simply too strong at the moment. They have straight-line speed, good balance, and a car that Max can clearly work with on every type of circuit.”

Hakkinen, who won two consecutive world championships with McLaren in 1998 and 1999, went on to add:

“Montreal is the kind of circuit where you need a little bit of everything – good confidence under braking and low-speed performance, but strong traction for the straights where you can overtake – and Max’s car looked brilliant everywhere.”

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Max Verstappen may need to be wary of Red Bull's reliability issues, claims Mika Hakkinen

Max Verstappen has nothing to fear more than Red Bull's somewhat suspect reliability in his battle for the 2022 F1 World Championship.

Both Verstappen and his teammate Sergio Perez have two DNFs each to their name so far this season, all of which have been a result of mechanical failure.

In his aforementioned column for Unibet, Mika Hakkinen touched upon this and how it could impact the Dutchman's title defense this year. He wrote:

“The only problem for Red Bull appears to be reliability. Once again we saw an issue in the race for Checo [Sergio] Perez. That must have made the team nervous on a day when Max really needed to take advantage of [Charles] Leclerc starting from the back of the grid, so the great result will have been a relief for them. Reliability seems to be the only thing Max, Checo [Perez], and the team needs to worry about.”

As we approach the tenth round of the season the 2022 F1 British GP Max Verstappen leads the World Drivers' Championship standings with 175 points.