Mika Hakkinen Q&A

"It's a great thing, it's a great thing to experience fatherhood. I cannot really explain 100% how strong the feeling is, but it definitely was even better than I expected."



"It's very simple, you know: I can ask the question why not? It was so easy to... I cannot explain, but when you're in France, or living in Monaco, you've got to have a name which is not complicated. Hugo was an easy name to remember and an easy name to pronounce, and that was one of the reasons. You asked also about titles, and it was quite a sad thing not to have the number one on the car this year. But then again you can see I'm quite relaxed at the moment, and probably one of the reasons for that is there's no pressure. I don't have to defend my title, I can go hunting again and try to get it back. I feel very happy about it and very comfortable and relaxed. It's a great thing."



"I don't know yet to be honest. I've been testing only a couple of times, and I doubt... Some drivers who I've been speaking to who have kids, for example from rallying, have been saying to me it definitely has made them stronger. Then the people who are not in the driving business very often say it makes you one second slower. Naturally I believe the people who are racing or who are drivers. But everyone's an individual, so I don't know how it's going to affect me. But so far I feel extremely good. It's something that I cannot talk about yet. We're just starting the season. Let's go to Melbourne and see how the season develops. Maybe I'll get a different feeling. At the moment I don't know yet, I'm only a dad for seven weeks. Maybe it will change during the year, what I'm going to feel inside, is it going to make me a quicker driver or slower driver or what. Let's say it this way: inside I feel very strong at the moment, very confident and comfortable and a happy guy inside. I don't think that sort of feeling should be a negative for your performance as a driver."



"Oh yes, really bad! [Mika pretends to cry...] No, not really. I mean it was an incredible year last year, and I thought if I got the third title it would be a mega achievement. But it's so hard, it's so tough, it was unreal. Losing the title last year was not the thing that would put me really down or make me feel really bad during the winter, or think that now I've lost my face and everything in front of everybody. I didn't feel that way, and I didn't feel that I let the fans down. In one sense I felt quite different, that it would give me more motivation this year to fight harder, and try to beat the others again. So it didn't put me down, no."



"I've done some studies, but to be honest not too much. The team has done most of the analysing, and that's the most important thing, that they understand what's going on. There have been quite radical changes in the team. Definitely our team is stronger than ever, in terms of the engineering side, and we're talking about the tactics for the race. So we should definitely be stronger. We'll see what happens this year."



"In one sense last year was so difficult, you know. The first and second GP was a disaster, and the third GP I had a failure and didn't even finish that properly. So it was very psychologically demanding, the start of the season. To be honest there could have teams where I was... losing motivation is not quite the right thing, but feeling a bit depressed, like 'What's going on?', you're fighting flat out, and then you lose it all the time, the first two or three GPs it was not right. But then things started going better, and there was a chance again. So hopefully this year is better."



"Well, I'm here and you can hear the cars going round! Definitely. It was difficult at first to understand how good Alex really is. You want a driver in the team who is quick and has the experience. I wasn't 100% sure how good Alex was, but the selection that the team did was really fantastic. So far he has done a really good work. I've been testing with him a couple of times, and I have to really keep my foot down, you know. He's quick, he is good."



"I've always found it a big problem to comment about some other drivers' comments about some other drivers... It's always something I feel very uncomfortable with, really. And to be honest Jacques hasn't been overtaking Michael for many years, has he! So maybe Michael has changed."



"That's true. I remember seeing green grass coming too quickly in front of me. There's always a limit to how rude you can be. It definitely depends which type of places you do something strange. And some drivers tend to do something rude and negative in places where they should not do it, because it is extremely dangerous. But I don't want to start saying negative things, because we're all racers, we're all fighters, and we'll always tend to do something which is not always correct. We don't always do everything absolutely perfectly, because of excitement or because we get nervous or things like that."



"Y-e-s. It's good, and David is definitely going to be pushing me again this year to go on the limit. Now we just have to understand how the season will develop, and what chances I will have, and what chances David will have."