I see certain signs that leave me to “ doubt whether he will continue racing for a long time. He has been racing for a long time; he has children; he has had his success; he has had his accident. It doesn’t matter how much you love the sport; Michael, too, will ask himself sooner or later, ‘How long is this to go on for?’ I find it difficult to judge whether he has the same reasons for a certain fatigue as I have. Did he have to struggle to get his own way like I did and did the full support of his team make his life a lot easier?”
And just like that, Mika Häkkinen’s back-handed projection of his own post-championship-winning demons on to champion-elect Michael Schumacher in September 2001 during an interview with – was nothing but a coded justification of retiring
