Valtteri Bottas was recently presented with a seemingly impossible challenge — picking the greatest driver of all time in F1. Whilst this has been an age-old debate, the #77 driver ended it once and for all, at least from his side.
In a segment for Sky Sports F1, the Finnish racing ace was asked to pick between two drivers at a time, the winner of each round would be pegged against another legend of the sport and so on went the game.
Bottas picked his countryman and two-time F1 champion, Mika Hakkinen over the likes of Nigel Mansell and Juan Manuel Fangio. But when the former McLaren driver was pegged against his ex-teammate, Lewis Hamilton, the #44 driver prevailed.
From there on, it was a simple task for the 2025 Mercedes reserve driver. The Finn picked Hamilton over all the other drivers including the likes of Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, and Max Verstappen. But why did Bottas snub his national hero Hakkinen?
Last year, Bottas made some interesting comments, which indicated that he didn’t consider Hakkinen as his hero anymore.
Valtteri Bottas plays winner stays on… wait for that ending pic.twitter.com/SXiLEh9s8b
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) February 15, 2025
“He [Hakkinen] won the championship twice. 98-99 and that’s when I was doing like go-karting myself so he was the hero. They say never meet your heroes. I think as a kid you’ll get this illusion that they are superheroes but in the end, everyone is a human,” the 35-year-old said in an interview with Sauber Motorsport.
However, Bottas highlighted how he may have had a bias toward his compatriot Hakkinen while doing the activity with Sky Sports. If Hamilton’s name wasn’t involved, he could have ended up picking the two-time world champion as the ‘greatest’.
Bottas is one of Hamilton’s loyal backers
Bottas’ appreciation for what Hamilton has achieved in the sport is no secret. In fact, the Finn has proclaimed the 40-year-old to be the GOAT of F1 in the past as well. And the Briton has often repaid the compliment.
“He [Bottas] has been the best teammate I’ve had the pleasure of working with,” Hamilton said as quoted by ESPN when the 10-time Grand Prix winner left the Silver Arrows at the end of 2021.
Despite getting back into the Mercedes fold as a third driver, Bottas is still eager to see Hamilton prosper. Knowing that he is switching teams after a long time at Mercedes, the Finn said that “it’s kind of a new project for him and he seems really excited.”
The #44 driver will be racing for Ferrari from this season onwards and Bottas has backed the Briton to bag that elusive eighth world title with the Prancing Horse of the Scuderia. If Hamilton can do so, he would certainly be regarded as the GOAT of F1, given he would surpass Schumacher’s tally of seven titles — having equaled it in 2020.
