“The first sign that there might be specific favoritism towards Mika came in Melbourne 1996,I was with my race engineer and Mika was chatting to his. The door opened and Ron walked in. I stood up to shake his hand and Ron ignored me.
Instead he strode over to sit next to Mika and said, ‘What’s the plan (for the race), guys?’ We all listened to Mika’s plans and then Ron said, ‘Okay, what are they doing?’ Here was my team principal talking about me as if I was a rival team. ‘They’ is not a word you use in a team situation, surely? At that exact moment, I think the naivety, the innocence of my youth, shattered around me,”