“Mika Häkkinen was the best opponent in terms of his quality, but the biggest admiration I had for him was that we had 100% fight on track but a totally disciplined life off track. We respected each other highly and let each other live quietly”. “Michael Schumacher”

Image; HOCH ZWEI / Juergen Tap

Image; HOCH ZWEI / Juergen Tap

Born September 28th in 1968, in Vantaa, Finland, Mika has enjoyed and amazing career in motorsport spanning some sixteen years driving for such prestigious names as Lotus and McLaren. He was Formula One World Champion back to back for two years, 1998 and 1999 when he competed with Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine for the two titles.

It wasn’t always plain sailing as he found out very early in his career as he found out in 1995 where he had a huge crash with life threatening injuries during the qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix in 1995. He made an amazing come back to racing and his career. The career that was almost cut short before it had even started.

When he was five years old, his parents hired a go-kart for him to take to a track near their home. On his first lap, Häkkinen was involved in an accident but he escaped unhurt. Despite this crash, Häkkinen wished to continue racing and after persistently annoying his parents, the young Finn got his wish fulfilled. His father bought Häkkinen his first go-kart, one that Henri Toivonen had previously competed with.

By 1986, Häkkinen had won five karting championships. 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg had helped Häkkinen by arranging him sponsorship that aided the Finn through the junior categories of open wheel racing. The “New Flying Finn” won three Scandinavian championships and the Opel Lotus Euroseries championship in 1988 before winning the 1990 British Formula Three Championship. During the late 1980s he lived in England and shared a house with West Surrey Racing team mate Allan McNish. Häkkinen was close to winning the 1990 Macau Grand Prix but missed out due to a controversial accident with Michael Schumacher, which resulted in his promotion to Formula One with Team Lotus.

In his first year with lotus he qualified 13th for his Grand Prix début at Phoenix, and would also have finished the race in the same position had his car not experienced an engine failure on lap 60. Häkkinen scored his first Grand Prix points two rounds later in Imola, where he finished fifth from 25th on the grid, three laps behind the race winner, Ayrton Senna.

Johnny Herbert joined Häkkinen for 1992 season. The Finn continued his form from 1991, with point-scoring finishes in six Grands Prix, his best finishes being fourth places in France and Hungary. Häkkinen finished the season at eighth place in the Drivers’ Championship, with almost six times as many points as during the previous season.

In 1993, Häkkinen joined McLaren as test driver with a view to be promoted to the race team later on. In Monaco he returned to racing with a guest drive in the Porsche Supercup race, an event he dominated. His hopes of stepping up to the race team were realised after Monza, when Michael Andretti left F1 after disappointing results. Häkkinen’s McLaren race début in Portugal was impressive. In his first outing for the team, he out qualified their star driver Ayrton Senna. Unfortunately, when pushing too hard through the final corner of the track during the race, he ran wide onto the dirty side of the kerb, launching the car towards the pit wall. At the time he was running in a point-scoring position. He went on to score a podium finish fifteen seconds behind his triple world champion team-mate during the next weekend at Suzuka, his first career podium.

With Senna departing for Williams for the 1994 season, Häkkinen became the leading driver for McLaren with Martin Brundle as his team mate. McLaren had also switched from the V8 Ford engines to Peugeot V10s. During the season, Häkkinen took six more podium finishes to add to his sole podium of 1993, including a second place in Belgium. He finished the year at fourth place in the Drivers’ Championship with a tally of 26 points. McLaren’s season was hampered by the Peugeot V10’s which had a nasty habit of blowing up during both qualifying and races.

In 1995 at Adelaide, he suffered a tyre failure at the early part of the first qualifying session, which resulted in him crashing heavily into the wall. He was critically injured in the crash, sustaining a skull fracture, internal bleeding and swallowing of his tongue which caused a blocking of his airway, and was saved only due to an emergency cricothyroidotomy that was performed by the side of the track by Sid Watkins. This incident forged a strong bond between him and team principal Ron Dennis, and also sent forth a new movement for extra safety in the sport. Luckily, Häkkinen recovered fully and was fit to race again in 1996, thus missing only one race. Mika climbed back into a Formula One car at Paul Ricard three months after the accident.

The following two seasons saw some success both for him and David Coulthard but it was 1998 before he could win the championship. He started by winning the first four races out of six. The it was the turn of Schumacher who won the next three races, allowing him to close the gap to Häkkinen in the Drivers’ Championship standings. Then Häkkinen won back to back races in Austria and Germany. In Hungary Häkkinen gathered only one point due to problems with the car’s gearbox, and in Belgium he had to retire after spinning the car followed by a crash with Johnny Herbert. Meanwhile, Schumacher was able to climb to only seven points behind him at the Drivers’ Standings. At Monza, Häkkinen managed a splendid start, but soon after ran into technical problems. At the end, Häkkinen managed fourth while Schumacher took victory. At this point in the season, Häkkinen and Schumacher were tied at the top of the standings at 80 points, with only two races left. At the penultimate race at the Nürburgring, Ferrari managed a front row lockout with Schumacher on the pole and Häkkinen immediately behind the Ferraris. Nevertheless, Häkkinen managed to win the race, securing a 4-point lead in the Drivers’ Standings before the season’s last race. Both contenders arrived to the finale at Suzuka with the title still up for grabs. Häkkinen was clearly favoured due to the superiority of the McLaren, though the Ferrari had developed during the course of the Championship. Schumacher took pole at the qualifying, with Häkkinen just beside him. At the warm-up lap however, the clutch of Schumacher’s car got stuck and he was forced to start from the back of the grid, elevating Mika to the front and as Michael retired Mika won the championship with 100 points.

Although a more difficult season both for him and the team, Mika managed to win the championship once more. The new McLaren was not as reliable as the older car and it took a few races before the car was improved. Ferrari on the other hand had produced and absolute flyer of a race car which looked unbeatable. For the second time in two years the championship went to the wire and decided in Japan.

The following two years became more difficult for him and in 2001 he announced his intention to take a sabbatical for a year which became a retirement in 2002.

Although he had made plans to return to racing in 2004 and many announcements and rumours followed, it did not materialise and instead he returned to competitive motorsport briefly at DTM in 2005 and drove for Mercedes for three seasons. His last was his most competitive and enjoyable. Most refer to this as “he found his form”.

Rumours continued about his return to F1, this time to McLaren in 2007, but again the deal was not agreed. However, he did work with McLaren in an advisory role as well as doing some testing in the cars.

Häkkinen announced his retirement from competitive motorsport on Sunday, 4 November 2007. He was quoted as saying that the decision “was not an easy one,” but added that “racing is still in my blood and this decision does not mean that this will prevent me from racing for pleasure.” A year later he announced that he will work in driver management.

Since his retirement he has worked with Charities as well as appearing on Top Gear and other TV programs. He has attended Goodwood Festival of Speed and basically “has kept his hand in”.

He has lived in Monte Carlo since 1991. His entire F1 trophies were lost in a fire which destroyed his mansion in France.

Tribute video to Mika here.
Mika talks F1 in 2011 here.
Mika drivers the old McLarens with David Coulthard here.

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