Valtteri Bottas names Lewis Hamilton as all-time great above his national hero and Michael Schumacher

Kicj Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas recently happened to be in an interesting challenge, in which he was asked to choose F1’s greatest driver of all time. Notably, it has been a long debate for a lot of years so far. However, the star driver managed to put a curtain over it, with his straightforward answers.

The Finnish star was in a conversation with Sky Sports F1, where the channel representative or the challenger asked Bottas to select one driver at a time from the two options given. This question-and-answer round went on till he came up with his final answer, which also made it to the news headlines.

In the first few questions, Bottas went with his compatriot and two-time champion of F1, Mika Hakkinen, when the latter was put in the two options with Nigel Mansell and Juan Manuel Fangio, respectively.

Later in the same segment, the challenger asked Bottas to pick between his national hero Hakkinen and former teammate, Lewis Hamilton. It seemed to be a very interesting question as the Finnish driver was struck between two great choices. However, Bottas picked his former teammate Lewis Hamilton as the all-time great over his national hero Mika Hakkinen.

🎥 || Valtteri Bottas plays 'winner stays on':

[..]
"Häkkinen or Hamilton?"

VB: "Hamilton"

"Hamilton or Senna?"

VB: "Hamilton"

"Hamilton or Schumacher?"

VB: "Hamilton"

"Hamilton or Lauda?"

VB: "Hamilton"

"Hamilton or Verstappen?"

VB: "Hamilton"pic.twitter.com/Ss11W4KEdy

— sin ⁴⁴ (@44britcedes) February 15, 2025

Here’s what Valtteri Bottas said about Mika Hakkinen in the past

Earlier, a couple of days back, Valtteri Bottas was in a conversation with Sauber Motorsport where he made a massive statement about his hero Hakkinen. This statement attracted a lot of news headlines and also sparked a new debate in the F1 fraternity. 

“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,” he had said during the famous interview with Sauber Motorsport.

Besides that, Hamilton had also praised Bottas in the past and his experience of being with the latter in the same team. 
“He [Bottas] has been the best teammate I’ve had the pleasure of working with,” Hamilton was quoted as saying by ESPN when Bottas parted his ways.