Quote Originally Posted by gm99 View Post
If it's my signature you're talking about, it has got nothing to do with Häkkinen winning the F1 championship on that day, but rather the death of CART racer Greg Moore on the same day, to whom my nickname is a tribute also. In fact, I was actually rooting for Mika to win the title earlier that day, as I much preferred him as a person to Schumacher.

So I'm not trying to diminish Häkkinen's achievements at all, nor his views on F1. I'm only questioning his objectivity with regard to Bottas, whom he known and mentored since his teen days and now manages.
I was talking to Nitrodaze, and it was his signature I was referring to. The first two lines of my quote refer to you, the last one to Nitrodaze.

Ok, Hakkinen probably favours Bottas when he probably knows there's guys inherently better than him. But it's not definitely the case that it is. It's not completely mind blowing that one could consider Bottas/Leclerc as the two best. If you surveyed enough people of varying demographics, it's possible you could find random people that share Mika's opinion without having the insight he has.

The more knowledge you have, the better you're able to make an accurate decision or opinion. Mika would have a better insight into what goes on than many of us. He's always going to be respected at MB having won WC with them. Even if they don't tell him the juicy bits, Bottas would tell. If nothing else, Raikkonen would tell him how Ferrari go about it. He's a WC in an Adrian Newey car, and he works for McLaren.

That's 4 avenues to access how the top 4 in the wcc go about it. But you're going to give the old "He manages Bottas, so he's probably biased.." line?

racing is pretty complicated. Have you considered the possibility that Bottas' best chance to beat Hamilton to the title, is to drive for a different team in a slightly worse car? At Ferrari for instance, as ide from MB being slanted towards Hamilton, he would not be asked to slow down to allow Hamilton pit and get out in front of him, like MB did at Singapore.

What if you got a job at the engineering department of MB, and found out about all these intricate advantages MB gave Hamilton, but was so boring and complicated, it doesn't get out to the public? "Shit, Autosport never told me about this..."

The Dutchies are biased, TBK is biased. Mika breaks it down and tells you what's going on.