Mika Hakkinen Q&A

"I did, yes. It was fantastic, and it was a great feeling to let David past also. It was good for David to finish on the podium in the last race. So I enjoyed it, yeah. It was a good fight with Michael for a little time. He tried to overtake me, and was not able to. It didn't make any difference to be honest to his result, but maybe some difference to my result. It was an interesting race."



"A little bit. Only half, probably."



"I didn't have any problem. There wasn't any point to even push. I enjoyed the last laps. I didn't want to go into the high speed corners in seventh gear, flat out, so I lifted a bit!"



"It's not a sad day. I think it's a very happy day. I'm happy it's over."



"I tell you what, he had a bad day today. He had a big shunt, and I'm happy he's OK. He'll definitely have a stiff neck. It's very sad to end the season like that to be honest. He's going to have a good time with the McLaren. It's definitely a team that can give him 100 percent support."



"I'm sure I can give him psychological support. I think he has to learn to know his own way in the team. He has to learn to get to the right people to support him. He's going to be all right."



"There have been great moments in my racing career. There have been many victories, a couple of World Championships. This year winning at Silverstone was very special for me, and winning at Indianapolis was even more special. Everything. There's been so many special moments in my career with the team. I have experienced very interesting times. What I remember most with McLaren have been the smiles on people's faces after the qualifying, after Grand Prix victories, especially in Monaco in 1998 when we got pole position and won the race."



"Definitely it has always been clean racing with him. That has always been my style anyway, I've always been trying to race a very clean race, and Michael has been exactly the same. Michael is also a driver that if somebody plays bad games with him, he'll answer for that. So it's been great."



"I'm glad it was over, very happy it was over I'll tell you. I can't find anything sad at the moment. People won't disappear anyway in F1. It will be the same people - you guys are going to be here, the mechanics are going to be here, the engineers. I'm not going to disappear anywhere from this planet. It's nothing sad. I'm happy that I've been able to come to this decision in my life, to take this time and to go away. I'm very glad about it. So I'm happy I've been able to finish the season in one piece, physically and mentally, and to go back home with my family."



"At the moment you can imagine. I'm going away because I need time off, and after five or six months, you never know what I'm going to feel. Time will show everything, but I'm happy to go away."



"I don't have any particular certain plans yet, what I'm really going to do in the future. I'm just going to take time off and rest, stay in one place for longer than one week, and I'm going to wake up in the morning in bed, and feel that I want to do something, that I want to do this or do that or that. Do I want to do something in F1, or do something in business? I want to experience the feeling. I'm not rushing into anything."



"Like Ron said in the press conference on Friday, there won't be any decisions on the number one driver, it will be the same for both Kimi and David for next year."



"I'm sure he can push David straight away. I understand that Kimi is a young driver. He's got plenty of things to learn. He has talent, which is important, but areas of F1 are very difficult, and David is a very professional, very tough racing driver, so it's not easy to work at the same level that he does. He's very, very good at that. It's going to take time for Kimi to get the maximum job done. I don't have any doubts at all, it just takes time for him to do it. If it's going to happen at the first race or second race of next season, I just don't know. It's going to happen sooner or later."