12 replies to this topic

[A3]

From Atlas news:

The 34-year old Finn, who will race for Toyota next season, also claimed he is always been the best Finnish Formula One driver, despite his best result being a second place with Ferrari back in 1999.

"I've always been the No 1 Finn," he said.

Salo is claiming he was offered to drive for Sauber this year and last year, but he declined because he didn't want to finish 6th, not high enough. He says he rather spends a year testing the Toyota, so he's "not that bored".



Salo gets a from me......

[RaggedEdge]

With Eddie Irvine as his teacher in Ferrari, what can you expect?

[Bjorn]

Salo is a funny, funny man.

[silver fan]

I've often thought that Salo and Irvine were seperated at birth.

[Louis Mr. F1]

when someone needs to constantly remind the others how great he is, it shows his lack of security and wants to gather media attention to boost up his status eg. Irvine, Coulthard (better this year) and now Salo.

Salo, you are now probably the no.3 Finn, with Kimi ahead of you.
Salo has claimed many times that given a competitive car, he'll be untouchable. Well, we saw that in 1999, except a good one in Hockenheim, which is a relatively easy/straight forward circuit (usually teammates qualify side-by-side). all other performance were not that brilliant. He blew his chances at Hungary when he qualified ~ 18th, and even in the race was no where, other managers saw immediately how inconsistent he was.
Salo, let your driving do the talking, Toyota will be your last chance.

[BRG]

Louis

[servellen]

Salo is just jealous of the other Mika. I guess if i were an F1 driver and i wasn't really all that successful I'd sell myself the same load of **** to keep me motivated. Think it's called dreaming! -svs

[Toyoter]

I'm not even sure that Salo will be the best Toyota driver next year, let alone the best Finn. McNish is the classiest and most intelligent racecar driver I have ever witnessed. I really hope he gets the opportunity to prove himself.

[John]

Hasn't McNish already outpaced Salo in testing sometimes? Now I know what people say, testing is testing, but if he is half as good as he says he is, and with 7 years of F1 experience...figure it out for yourself.

German GP '99 was great, but he proved his worth in qualifying a WCC car 18th in Hungary '99. Absolutely no excuse for that, with his supposed ranking as the #1 Finn.

[No27]

Mika Salo is trying to get attention. Everyone interested in fast Finns will be looking at Raikonnen. And oh, there is Mika Salo as well. Don't underestimate him however, he did some great performances at for example at Monaco, not the easiest track. I think he might be just as good or even better than Eddie Irvine, HHF or Olivier Panis. However, to say he is the no. 1 Finn seems a bit like being creative with the truth, very creative.

[Spunout]

Salo has always been like that. He was good at Ferrari because despite of not knowing the team (and you can be sure they did not show him all the technical secrets) he drove better than EI IMO. It was not just about Hckenheim - look at Monza where EI wasn´t even close to him. Salo is good and reliable driver but you don´t see those really brilliant performances by him very often. Few excellent races (especially at Monaco) might be an exception to the rule, but he has not shown anything indicating him being better than Mika H, despite the fact that he is one of the most underrated drivers in F1.

[AD]

If my memory serves me correctly, Salo only beat Irvine at Monza and Hockenheim which are 2 tracks where the driver has the minimal input. At every other track Eddie destroyed him big time.

Salo is probably on a level with Kimi, but Mika is many, many levels above these 2.

[gerry nassar]

Dont even bother comparing him to Hakkinen. As for Kimi - Id rate him above Salo aswell. Salo isnt a bad driver - at times he can be one of the best but not consistently. I thought his time at Ferrari actually lessoned his value - as i remember reading countless articles in the years before Austria 99 (especially Peter Windsor) saying how good Salo was and how if given a good car would show that he is one of the best. But after the Ferrari period - nothing of that kind was ever said about Salo again.