Hakkinen: slow news week
Discussion
It's the end of the season and Autosport are struggling to shift a few copies. Solution? Run a story that Hakkinen could be making a comeback (again). Yawn.
Haven't read the article yet, maybe I should (I will later) but why does this smack of the same sort of half-truths as their "Rossi is as quick as Schumacher" story earlier this year? A recent quote in a column said that the feeling was he would only ever be good in F1 rather than great. So why hype him up? I notice they've reprised this story this week, too.
Let's be fair. Mika, 39 next year, left F1 after becoming disillusioned with the workload, especially in the light of fatherhood. He returned to the DTM because he missed competition but his performances suggest the focus is not as it was. Perhaps I'm wrong but I find it rather odd that McLaren would sign up yesterday's man instead of someone they've spent a fair few quid on over the past 10 years. If number two to Alonso's not expected to do as well, why not use that as a development year?
Haven't read the article yet, maybe I should (I will later) but why does this smack of the same sort of half-truths as their "Rossi is as quick as Schumacher" story earlier this year? A recent quote in a column said that the feeling was he would only ever be good in F1 rather than great. So why hype him up? I notice they've reprised this story this week, too.
Let's be fair. Mika, 39 next year, left F1 after becoming disillusioned with the workload, especially in the light of fatherhood. He returned to the DTM because he missed competition but his performances suggest the focus is not as it was. Perhaps I'm wrong but I find it rather odd that McLaren would sign up yesterday's man instead of someone they've spent a fair few quid on over the past 10 years. If number two to Alonso's not expected to do as well, why not use that as a development year?
Edited by kevin ritson on Thursday 16th November 08:58
kevin ritson said:
It's the end of the season and Autosport are struggling to shift a few copies. Solution? Run a story that Hakkinen could be making a comeback (again). Yawn.
He returned to the DTM because he missed competition but his performances suggest the focus is not as it was.
He returned to the DTM because he missed competition but his performances suggest the focus is not as it was.
As Chairman Mao once said... "Autosport, it's a pile of shite really".
They are famous for this kind of stuff in the off season. I remember a few years ago they ran an article, The 50 greatest crashes. That kind of garbage is perilously close to Channel 5's Craziest-Police-Chase type of brain-dead, dumbed-down rubbish.
Hakkinen's perfomances in DTM haven't been as good as a lot of us would want, and I think that DTM now has a three tiers of drivers;
1) Proper title contenders - Schneider, Kristensen, Ekstrom, etc
2) Ex-F1 drivers who's name is guaranteed to draw the crowds - Alesi, Frentzen, Hakkinen
3) Younger drivers who can't be arsed to spend Euro400k in F3 anymore and compare the higher profile of DTM and ease of sponsorship.
Having said that about Hakkinen, he was at one of the GP's recently, and he almost looks younger since he got out of F1. He's clearly enjoying life, and racing, even if he's not quite at the sharp end of the grid...
Gassing Station | General Motorsport | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff