Finns Will Never Be The Same Again (Mika Hakkinen)

Member Name: Modena

Product:	Mika Hakkinen
Date:	11/11/01 (150 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 1998 and 1999 performances, commitment, experience, inner strength, excellent record,

Disadvantages: Inability to get past mid-pack, bad luck in 2000, inconsistency in 2001, difficult to get a word out of him, won’t be cheap to hire

Mika Hakkinen, the flying Finn is the Formula One World Champion of 1998 and in 1999, he became the seventh man in history to win back to back championships. Mika is taking a sabbatical from the Formula One world series for the 2002 season, this is my opinion on my favourite driver for the last 5 years or so…

>Pre Formula One History
Mika was born on the 28th of September ’68 in Helsinki. He won the British Formula 3 champion in 1990, he was seventh in 1989.

>Formula One History (Source: Sporting Life Website)

>1991: Mika was with Lotus he made his debut in USA and his best result was fifth in San Marino. (2 points - 15th in championship)

>1992: Mika was with Lotus again, fourth in France and Hungary, fifth in Portugal and sixth in Mexico, GB and Belgium. (11 points - 8th in championship)

>1993: Now Mika didn’t catch my eye at prior to this time, his team mate was Johnny Herbert and they seemed well matched, usually in the middle of the grid. But things took a change for the good in 1993 when he became the McLaren test driver, at this time Senna and Andretti were the main drivers at McLaren. The real turning point was Andretti’s failure to adapt to Formula One, Michael was going back to the USA in 1994 and Mika was going to replace Senna who was going to arch rivals Willimas.

Andretti decided to leave F1 with 3 races still remaining, and this was Mika’s big break. His McLaren debut was to be at the Portugese GP, where he outqualified Senna, impressing a lot of people. He mangaged to finish third in the Japanese GP that year. They were his only points and the finished 15th overall.

>1994: Mika raced with McLaren he was second in Belgium, third in San Marino, Britain, Italy, Portugal and European Grand Prix. (26 points - 4th in championship)

>1995: Again with McLaren, second in Italy and Japan, fourth in Brazil, fifth in San Marino. (17 points - 7th in champion
ship)

This year was not as good as 1994, but to be honest, I was too busy involved in Damon Hill fever to notice, until…

Tragedy
During qualifying for the season’s finale in Australia, Mika was involved in a horror smash, he fractured his skull and he was out of action for a long time. Would Mika be back?

Mika was already booked for the McLaren seat for the 1996 season and in 87 days he was back testing.

>1996: Mika was third in Britain, Belgium, Italy and Japan, fourth in Brazil and Hungary, fifth in Australia, Spain, Canada and France and sixth in Monaco. (31 points - 5th in championship)

Damon Hill won the world Championship this year, so I don’t remember much, but this was to be when Mika was joined by David Coulthard, the start of a long partnership…

>1997: This was the year where the title was fought between Villeneuve and Schumacher, and the title was on a knife edge going into the season’s finale at the European GP, Schumacher takes the lead and Villenuve closes up dramatically, Villenuve makes a manoeuvre on Schumi and Schumi gets back to his old tricks but fortunately they did not pay off, Schumacher was out of the race and JV was in the lead with uncertainty about suspension failure.

JV needed a few points to win, but also the pack behind were close, this pack was lead by DC, but DC just could not get past JV. Then… team orders, Ron Dennis, the team boss at McLaren ordered DC to let Mika past and let Mika have a go at JV, and Mika passed JV and went onto win the race… This really gave Mika a confidence boost.

He was also third in Melbourne and Germany, fourth in Brazil and Japan, fifth in Argentina, and sixth in San Marino. (27 points - equal 5th in championship)

>1998: Victories in Australia, Brazil, Spain, Monaco, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and Japan, second in Argentina and Britain, third in France and sixth in Hungary. M
ika fought a fabulous battle with Schumi to win the World Championship. I certainly did not expect him to win at the start, but as soon as the season commenced, the Mercedes, Newey, Bridgestone combination seemed awesome against a re-junvinated Ferrari team, who I also liked a lot. Mika scored 100 championship points.

>1999: This year was not as smooth as 1998, Schumacher broke his legs in the British GP, and the fight was with Irvine in the Ferrari, I could not believe that Irvine had a genuine chance to win the Championship. The pressure was really on Mika, with Schumacher having a hand at the final GP, but a super start put the pressure back on Ferrari. Mika won in Brazil, Spain, Canada, Hungary and (who can forget?) Japan, he was second in France and Belgium, third in Monaco, Austria and Malaysia, and fifth in Europe (76 points - WORLD CHAMPION)

It took until the final GP once again to seal it, one just had the feeling that in 2000, with Schumacher back, Mika was probably not going to win in 2000…

>2000: Mika had a bad start in 2000, Schumacher and DC were top of the standings, this was mainly due to reliability problems, but also Mika was losing focus a little.

But Mika fought back and moved up the tables, then, towards the end of another exciting Belgian GP at Spa, Mika in second place chases down Schumi, round La Source and through Eau Rouge, they come up to Zonta and are allowed to lap him, Mika takes the double slip-stream and Schumi takes the outside and Mika darts to the inside, sandwiching Zonta and enters the corner before Schumi, this has been described as one of the greatest manoeuvres of all time! Mika went onto win this race and he was back on top of the championship! However, Schumacher won the next four races in a row and it was all over.

Mika had victories in Spain, Austria, Hungary and Belgium, second in San Marino, Britain, Europe, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, fourth in Canada and Mala
ysia and sixth in Monaco. (89 points - 2nd in championship)

Then, later that year, Hugo, his first child was born and the speculators began to speculate Mika’s commitment for the 2001 season.

>2001: This seems so long ago doesn’t it? The season got off to a bad start, Ferrari genuinely looked as if they had a better car, Mika was struggling to fight with Barichello and DC, and DC seemed to be fighting with Schumi for the title, leaving Mika in the wilderness with all the reliability problems, were the speculators right?

Then the Spanish GP, Spain was always a circuit that suited the McLarens, and I was optimistic that Mika was going to show everyone that it was not all over. It started with the infamous “brain fade” incident, DC third on the grid had an engine problem and had to start from the back. Schumacher, on pole had a good start, and after the first round of pit stops was still in the lead, but Mika took the lead after the second round of pitstops and with certain victory on lap 65 of a 65 lap race…

“Mika’s slowing down Murray” *Splutter Splutter*

Then Montoya unlapped himself and there seemed to be some kind of fire at the back, I was just hoping that he could limp the car home, but no. DC finished the race in 5th position and gave Mika a lift back to the pits, Mika was still smiling and naturally Schumi was there to say “unlucky mate” to Mika.

That was it, I knew it was not going to happen this year, and I thought Mika was going to call it a day halfway through the season. But Mika plugged on and won the British GP and the American GP. He was well down in the Championship and announced that he was going to take a sabbatical before the end of the season.

>F1 Stats:
Starts: 161
Victories: 20
Poles: 26
Fastest Laps: 25
Points: 420
GP Debut: 1991, United States GP, Lotus, retired
First GP Win: 1997, European GP,
McLaren

>So What Went Wrong?
Why didn’t Mika win in 2000 and 2001, I think it is mainly because Ferrari and Williams cars got better and bad luck, lack of motivation definitely played a part. Mika did fight really hard in 2000, but 2001, he was sometimes in DC’s shadows. But take the Spanish GP, the McLarens were very competitive and Mika was just like his old self, admittedly Barcelona always did suit the high aerodynamic grip McLaren, but he was 7 KMH faster than M Schumacher who was 14th fastest through the speed trap during the race (Barichello 19th and Raikkonen in the Sauber Ferrari was even faster than Schumi). Mika was a whole KMH faster than DC at that time, and 2km faster than the Williams BMW pair, so in the beginning the Mercedes engine was not that bad… But the result in Spain really did write off Mika’s chances to finish in the top 3.

>Personality
This is what makes Mika stand out from the rest, Mika is the quiet focussed type, this is what drives my admiration for him and at the same time, this is also what makes a lot of people dislike him. Mika is the sort of person who prefers to give one word answers to things, he is one of the most focussed drivers on the circuit, and in my opinion, this is how drivers should be, you can either give racing everything, or just be really popular and not achieve much like Eddie Irvine.

Mika features in TAG Heuer (sponsors of the McLaren team and the official F1 timer) and the caption is “inner strength” that is precisely it!

Mika doesn’t show his emotions too easily, in the Italian GP (I think in 1999 or 2000) he was in the lead by a mile and going into the Rettifilio he shifted down an extra gear, losing the rear end and putting him out of the race, he got out of the car and threw his gloves and started crying to the joy of the Tifosi.

In the Japanese GP this year, Mika was in a sure third position, with DC fourth, Mika
seemed to slow down deliberately to give DC the podium position, now the first thing I thought was that Mika was doing a thank you gesture for David’s help over the last few years, (like letting Mika have a chance to get his maiden victory and the peculiar agreement thing where the first person into the first corner at the 1998 Australian GP would be given victory thing), and rightly so I think, but I also thought it was that Mika didn’t wish to be interviewed at the press conference, and have questions about the future asked. When asked about why Mika was not third in the Japanese GP, DC joked that maybe it was because he didn’t wish to talk to “you guys”.

>Skill
I would say that for the 1998-2000 seasons, Mika was undoubtedly the second best driver out there. He was consistently better than DC and always delivered when under pressure, the commitment he showed going into some fast corners when the TV was showing an ob-board was phenomenal.

Now this sounds really biased doesn’t it? Well yes, of course. The problem with Mika’s driving is when the car is not hooked up, this is the same with every driver, but when his car is not hooked up, he finds it difficult to get past the mid-pack (like the Jordans etc). In the wet Mika is okay, not as good as Schumi, but Schumi is a class above the rest right? Schumi can judge the grip available better than anyone else, but Mika clearly was the best of the rest. One must really also bear in mind the 1995 incident...

>The DC perspective
If you are a DC fan, you might think that DC is as good as Mika, but Ron Dennis, the McLaren boss is closer to Mika than DC so DC never gets his chance. There does seem to be some preferential treatment to Mika, like pitstops priorities when it is important (I know McLaren has rules about this like whoever gets on pole gets first choice, but Mika has never came off worse right?) or does Mika get the preferential treatment
because he is/was better? Either way though, they seemed to get on well with each other.

>The Hall Of Fame
Will Mika be remembered as one of the best racing drivers along with Fangio etc and more recently Prost and Senna (and Schumacher?), this is a difficult one to answer. When Mika was at the top, he had the best machinery, neither does he have any important records, but as a big fan, I would like to think that he will be, maybe he will be remembered as the best of the rest.

> The Future
Well Mika is officially taking a sabbatical next season, DC says that he would like Mika to still be around to do some testing, implying that nothing is/was agreed. Mika will be attending all the races I think, and chances are he will probably wish he was out there making a difference.

But in my opinion, next season will be dominated by Williams and Ferrari, perhaps nailing McLaren to third position (perhaps with Renault??? Or even Sauber????), will Mika want to be returning in a non-winning car? And what about Kimi Raikkonen? At the beginning of the season, he was quite fast, though he faded towards the end, but what if he is faster than DC? Will McLaren tell Kimi to budge for Mika? I doubt it…

Jaguar? There is speculation that should Mika wish to return and McLaren don’t want him, then Mika may be offered a position at Jaguar, I don’t think that this is likely to happen because I cannot see Jaguar moving up the order, and neither do I think he likes Irvine too much.

>The Podium
Well I don’t think the 2002 F1 season is going to be complete without the Flying Finn, but I know every F1 fanatic will think that the next season will always be the best yet… hopefully it won’t be an exception…

Now just to find someone to support for 2002…

Summary: