“After a couple of years, I thought about coming back. I started getting interested again. I had had time off, I was relaxed [and] I had time to get back into shape mentally and physically, but once you take the decision to leave
F1, I don't think you should ever come back – unless, of course, it depends on what you have in your records.
“I had a couple of world championships, so if I had gone back to F1 there was nothing else for me to prove except to win. I could not have settled to come second, third or sixth. The only thing in Formula 1 is winning, and there was no guarantee for me [that] I could have had a winning car or the other elements that would have influenced winning. The risk was too high to try to go back to
Formula 1.”
Instead, the man from Helsinki broke his sabbatical with a number of merely speculative F1 tests and by returning to action in the DTM touring car championship, triumphing three times for Mercedes-Benz in the pan-European tin-top series from 2005 to 2007, before electing to hang up his racing helmet for good last November.
Speaking in Canada in his role as a global, responsible-drinking ambassador for
McLaren sponsor Johnnie Walker, Hakkinen responded enthusiastically to remarks from seven-time title-winner and long-time rival Schumacher that he had been the competitor the German most feared and respected during their time together in the uppermost echelon.
“It's a pleasure to hear from him that he felt that way,” he replied. “Michael is a great champion – to win the championship many times is not easy. He had some tough races and we had some hard races between us where he won and where I won.
“They were wheel-to-wheel often – no collisions, but close. We had some of the toughest races ever between two drivers. What he said about me shows the respect [he had] for me. I have the same respect for him.”
