Martin Brundle has been reflecting on some of the greatest drivers to ever race in Formula 1.
The current era of F1 has seen Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen all dominate the sport.
Speaking on the Beyond The Grid Podcast, Martin Brundle was talking about the era before the current drivers and how they compared.
Before the current crop of drivers – except for the ever-present Fernando Alonso – McLaren, Williams and Ferrari were the dominant forces.
Michael Schumacher led the way throughout the early 2000s, winning five titles on the bounce for the Tifosi.
However, Brundle has suggested that there were two players with better raw speed than the legendary German – Ayrton Senna and Mika Hakkinen.
Schumacher and Senna’s careers only overlapped for a couple of years, but arguably his closest rival throughout his career was the exceptionally quick Finn.
Martin Brundle suggests Mika Hakkinen had better ‘raw speed’ than Michael Schumacher
Brundle was already on the Formula 1 grid in 1991 when a young Finnish driver named Mika Hakkinen joined Lotus and an extremely exciting talent in the form of Michael Schumacher arrived midway through the season at Jordan.
Hakkinen won the British Formula 3 Championship the year before and had garnered a reputation as one of the gifted drivers rising through the ranks.
Schumacher matched Hakkinen’s achievement in Germany and his debut for Jordan was so impressive that Benetton immediately signed him up for the following race.
The Finnish driver spent the majority of his career at McLaren, winning two titles in 1998 and 1999.
At that point, he had already watched Schumacher earn a couple of championships with Benetton before he took on the mammoth challenge of returning Ferrari to their former glory.
In 2000, Schumacher narrowly pipped Hakkinen to a hat-trick of titles and went on to dominate the sport, while his arch-rival retired at the end of 2001 following a huge accident in Australia that affected his desire to race.
He said in his retirement statement, via ITV F1: “The accident in Melbourne this season, when my suspension broke, affected me more than anyone could see from the outside.”
Despite this, looking back on his period in Formula 1, Brundle believed that Hakkinen ultimately had more speed than Schumacher.
Michael Schumacher had other advantages over Ayrton Senna and Mika Hakkinen
Talking about some of the sport’s fastest drivers, Brundle said: “Ayrton [Senna] had a talent that was something very special, an incredible sort of feel.
“Michael [Schumacher] was driven from his head completely and was slightly more methodical.
“I don’t think he had the raw speed of Ayrton or even Mika [Hakkinen] if the truth be known.
“But Michael was really clever inside the car and out of the car and I think that’s where he made the difference.
“He galvanised the whole team around him. He got all the right people pointing in the right direction for him and won his championships and Michael was so clever like that, he just did it in a different way.”
Formula 1 has seen some phenomenal battles over the years and Brundle witnessed first-hand at the beginning of the 1990s the talents that Hakkinen and Schumacher would develop into.
Aspects of Schumacher’s racecraft are still being identified in drivers on the grid today, including McLaren driver Oscar Piastri.
Mika Hakkinen only won 20 races compared to Schumacher’s 91 victories in F1.
The dominance of his Ferrari compared to the McLaren in that era had a huge impact on both driver’s success within the sport.
It would have been fascinating had the pair ever driven the same machinery to see who would have come out on top.
The post ‘Truth be known’: Martin Brundle says 20-win F1 driver had more ‘raw speed’ than Michael Schumacher appeared first on F1 Oversteer.