Mika Häkkinen
Mika Häkkinen always seemed bound for great deeds in racing. With the benefit of long-term sponsorship and the guiding hand of Keke Rosberg, he negotiated the slippery slope to the top in very short order and still showed the patience to bide his time when necessary. After sustaining very serious head injuries in practice for the Australian GP at the end of 1995, Häkkinen came back with his appetite undiminished and eventually fulfilled his early promise by taking successive World championships with McLaren-Mercedes in 1998 and 1999.
A multiple karting champion in his native Finland, winner of three FF1600 titles in 1987, and GM Lotus Euroseries champion in 1988, Häkkinen had a pretty impressive CV to take into the 1989 Formula Three season. Initially things went wrong. Having opted to stay with the Dragon team that had served him so well in 1988, he found himself way off the pace, but he persevered and when he switched to the WSR squad for the prestigious Cellnet F3 Superprix at the end of the season, he promptly won it.
A deal was then concluded for 1990 and Mika never looked back, winning a total of twelve races at home and abroad, despite missing out on the prestigious Macau title after a duel with future F1 rival Michael Schumacher. He took the British F3 championship and, before the year was out, had landed a Formula One seat with Lotus.
In his first season in Grand Prix racing, the confident young Finn impressed everyone with his car control in a chassis that was never a match for the best, scoring points in only his third race. The following season, with a much better car, the team on the up and Ford HB engines, Mika firmly established himself in the top echelon, extracting the very maximum from the sleek Lotus 107.
Now came an unexpected chance that Häkkinen wisely grabbed. With Ayrton Senna
prevaricating over his contract at McLaren, Ron Dennis lost little time in signing Mika as cover in case the Brazilian should carry out his threat not to race. In the end Senna contested the full season, and Hakkinen was left sitting on the sidelines, waiting patiently for his opportunity, which finally came when Michael Andretti headed back home. In his first race, in Portugal, Mika out-qualified his master, and lay third in the race until he ran wide and hit the barriers. In his next race, in Japan, he was more circumspect, settling for a career-best third place in wildly fluctuating weather and track conditions.
For 1994, Häkkinen assumed the McLaren team leadership in the wake of Senna's departure for Williams. However, the optimism engendered by a new liaison with Peugeot soon evaporated and his year was spent in frustration that sometimes turned into desperation, such was his desire to succeed. Ill-advised first-corner moves at Monaco and Hockenheim saw him eliminated, the latter indiscretion earning him a one-race ban.
A much-heralded partnership with Mercedes Benz for 1995 brought promise of a new dawn for McLaren's sagging fortunes but, once more, the team were never really on the pace, although Mika drove superbly in a handful of races, taking second places at Monza and Suzuka. His performance in Japan was all the more admirable since he had undergone an appendectomy only ten days earlier, missing the previous weekend's Pacific GP.
Less than a fortnight after that sparkling performance came disaster in Adelaide. Mika was very close to losing his life and only prompt action saved him. Somehow, the fun-loving Finn made a miraculously swift return and, after a shaky start, soon proved he had lost none of the blinding speed he had always shown in the past. Indeed, the 1996 season was the one in which Mika established himself as a bona fide number one driver. Now all that was been missing was the breakthrough Grand Prix victory that the driver and team had been working so hard to achieve over the past three years.
That win came in the opening race of the 1997 season at Melbourne but, unfortunately for the Finn, it was David Coulthard's name that went into the record books. Undeterred, Mika continued to knock on the door, shrugging aside the heartbreak of a late, late retirement when leading the British Grand Prix to bounce back with more determination than ever. He had to wait until the season's finale at Jerez before taking the top step of the podium, however, and, in the event, the victory was somewhat hollow in that both
Jacques Villeneuve and David Coulthard allowed Häkkinen through to the chequered flag.
By 1998, however, his time had come. After Coulthard had stood by a pre-race agreement to allow the Finn to take first place in the Australian Grand Prix, Mika then scorched away from his team-mate to begin a thrilling championship battle with Michael Schumacher. Wins in Brazil, Spain, Monaco, Austria and Germany were topped by perhaps his greatest triumph, at the Luxembourg Grand Prix, when he pulled out a top-drawer performance to defeat his Ferrari rival. His championship clincher in Japan was to be a much easier win after Schumacher had stalled his car at the start.
Back-to-back titles are notoriously hard to achieve and being the hot favourite for a repeat championship seemed to take its toll on both McLaren and Häkkinen. Brilliant performances were interspersed with inexplicable lapses by both driver and team, who, it seemed, were going to lose the championship despite Schumacher's enforced absence after his Silverstone shunt. In the end, Mika's fluctuating title battle with Eddie Irvine and Ferrari was won with a truly dominant performance in Japan. And, while there was some sympathy for the underdog Irishman who had run the Finn so close, the general consensus was that the right man had claimed the World championship crown.
The Hakkinen-Coulthard axis remained in place at McLaren heading into 2000, and was expected to form formidable opposition to anyone looking to steal the Finn's title. The new MP4-15 had not blown its rivals away in testing, however, and proved to be too fragile in the opening rounds to aid Hakkinen's cause. While Michael Schumacher built up a comfortable cushion on which to mount his successful championship charge, Hakkinen had to wait until round three for his first points and round five, in Spain, for a first win of the year.
Even team-mate Coulthard appeared to have gotten the better of a jaded Finn, but an enforced mid-season rest did Hakkinen wonders and he was back on form from Austria onwards. Surviving a post-race appeal after trouncing the field at the A1-Ring, the Finn then repeated the dose in Hungary and pulled off an amazing passing move at Spa to haul in Schumacher's points advantage, only to be pipped at the post at Suzuka's penultimate round.
Staying with McLaren for a ninth straight season, Hakkinen insisted that his motivation was higher than ever, and believed that the new MP4-16 would be the car to regain him the world crown. Testing was blighted by engine failures on the latest Mercedes unit, however, and started Hakkinen's year in the worst possible fashion. Outshone by team-mate Coulthard early on, the victim of an accident in Melbourne and with a young son back at home, it quickly became clear that the Finn's heart wasn't entirely in it.
Further disappointment followed in Spain, when a comfortable lead over Schumacher's Ferrari evaporated with exhaust failure on the final lap, and, despite the protests, Häkkinen moved ever closer to what many considered would be retirement.
Instead, the Finn opted to announce a twelve-month sabbatical and, with his mental burden lightened, ended his year with a win at Indianapolis, to add to another at Silverstone, and fifth place in the driver’s points.
In 2002, Mika confirmed he would not be returning to F1, his sabbatical turning into permanent retirement. 'The Flying Finn' had gone – from F1 at least. His retirement was interrupted by an outing on the Arctic Rally with Mitsubishi, and whispers that he was to accept a testing role in F1 – with anyone from with Williams and BAR to McLaren. The speculation finally came to an end when Häkkinen announced that he would indeed be returning to circuit racing… in the DTM for the 2005 season.
As part of the crack AMG Mercedes squad, the Finn soon showed he had lost little of his speed or motivation as he took a storming win at Spa in only his third race. Although the following season was less convincing, without a win, and only sixth place in the final standings, Häkkinen remained a top-drawer attraction for the series. He has committed himself to Mercedes for a third successive year in 2007.
