First Impressions Count: Interview with Mika Hakkinen

After three years in the DTM with Mercedes, Mika Hakkinen has announced the end of his racing career, and this time it appears to be for good, for there has been no use of the word 'sabbatical.'

The 39-year-old is expected to fulfil some sort of ambassadorial role with Mercedes, a company that he has been close with since he first raced their engines in 1995.

The Finn's most successful years came during his time at McLaren in Formula One, where he shared a special bond with team boss Ron Dennis in particular. The foundations of this bond are often traced back to Adelaide in 1995, when Hakkinen came so close to dying at the wheel of a McLaren.

Dennis was one of those at Hakkinen's bedside after his horrific accident in Australia, but for the driver, the relationship between the two had been special long before that.

Hakkinen had entered Formula One in 1990 with plenty of strong credentials. He had won in several junior categories, and just a few months before that, as newly-crowned British F3 champion, he had gone head-to-head with Michael Schumacher at the front of the field in the prestigious Macau Formula 3 Grand Prix.

After two disappointing years at Lotus, Hakkinen opted to take the role of test driver with McLaren for 1993, and at the first race of the year, Dennis made his young charger a promise that would mean a lot to the Finn for the rest of his career.

"At the start of the year, in South Africa, Ron promised me that at some point in the year I would race the car," Hakkinen remembers. "I was watching the race at the time, and he said to me, 'you are going to race this year.'"

Ron Dennis and Mika Hakkinen in 1993 © LAT

Hakkinen played the waiting game throughout the season, and eventually his opportunity came when Michael Andretti left the team following the Italian Grand Prix.

Dennis was true to his word, and he put Hakkinen in the car for the final three races of the year, starting with the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril. It's a weekend that Hakkinen remembers vividly to this day.

"When Ron told me that I would race in Portugal I was very happy, because he had kept his promise to me," says Hakkinen. "I was very proud to have a team manager that would keep his promise. That gave me a lot of confidence to perform well for him."

After having his talent masked by his machinery during his first two seasons of F1, Hakkinen was about to be given a fantastic opportunity to prove himself. Not only did he have a reasonably competitive car, but in Ayrton Senna he had a three-time world champion in the other side of the garage to compare himself with.

He was well aware of the opportunity that he had been presented with, and naturally for any young racing driver, he was hugely excited by the prospect of racing for a top team. However, he tried his best to keep his emotions to himself.

"Of course I was excited, but I didn't want to show people how excited I was," he remembers. "We had a press conference on the Thursday, and I was calm, relaxed. There was no pressure on me, and I when I spoke to the media I just stuck to the facts."

But Hakkinen wasn't hiding his emotions directly from the media. He was more concerned with Senna, who would no doubt be scrutinising the young charger's every move as he tried to assess just how much of a threat the new kid on the block would be.

"At the end of the day, my competitor, Ayrton, was sitting next to me," he says. "I didn't want to show him what I was thinking, what I was feeling."

Senna got the answers he needed when the cars took to the track on the Friday before the race, as Hakkinen was matching him for speed. The Brazilian knew immediately that his new teammate meant business, and it drove him into his shell for the rest of their brief time together.

Mika Hakkinen, McLaren MP4/8 Ford, 1993 Grand Prix of Portugal, Estoril © LAT

"The relationship with Ayrton was very cold, which was disappointing," says Hakkinen. "He obviously felt that I was a big threat to him. The difference was not big, but he knew that I had the speed.

"So obviously, he did not want to give me any help. He was a three-time world champion, he had been there and done it all, he had seen a lot, but he didn't want to help me."

In the end, Hakkinen didn't seem to need Senna's help. Without it, he put his car third on the grid, just ahead of one of the sport's best-ever qualifiers.

Senna, who hadn't been out-qualified by a teammate for 18 months, would line up fourth, with the unfamiliar sight of another McLaren ahead of him. It was a shock result, and one that Hakkinen was determined to make the most of on the Saturday evening.

"When I beat him in qualifying it was a big shock to him," says Hakkinen. "The team were surprised, but happy for me, but Ayrton was not very happy at all. He didn't understand what was going on.

"That's normal though. You have a three-time world champion, and then a guy comes from Lotus to be test driver, then he is quicker than him in their first qualifying together. It was a catastrophe for him, so of course he wasn't happy about it.

"He still wasn't speaking to me, but I spoke to him. It was a funny situation, and he was really pissed off. Of course, I wasn't feeling sorry for him, I was winding him up a bit, but that's the name of the game."

While Senna pondered the upset, and the vacant seat at Williams-Renault following Alain Prost announcing his retirement that weekend, Hakkinen enjoyed the moment, and said prior to the race that he genuinely believed he could take the lead at the first corner.

He got to the front briefly at the start, before Jean Alesi swooped around the outside into the quick first corner, and Hakkinen slotted into second.

Shortly after that he offered little resistance to Senna, who was running with a different specification of the V8 Ford Cosworth engine. Despite making a nuisance of himself after qualifying, Hakkinen had his sensible head on when it came to going wheel to wheel with Senna.

Mika Hakkinen speaks to the media after out-qualifying teammate Ayrton Senna in the 1993 Portuguese GP © LAT

"Ayrton and me had different engine specs," he says. "Mine was working in different areas to his, so there was no point in battling him in the race. I had no chance. We were underpowered, and in Portugal the most important parts of the lap were the long straights."

Senna's more powerful engine didn't last though, and 19 laps into the race Hakkinen was McLaren's only hope for victory, as he moved back into second place behind Alesi.

McLaren tried to use the pitstops to get their new star ahead of the Ferrari, but with Alesi coming in on the same lap, the order remained the same, and Hakkinen would have to do it himself, on the track.

"It was important to get a good run out of the last corner, to have a chance to overtake," says Hakkinen. "I was following Alesi, and I got some understeer mid-corner. But I kept my foot down because I knew I needed to carry the speed down the straight otherwise I would not be able to pass him.

"I went a little bit on the kerb on the exit, and I thought 'no problem, I'll still keep my foot down,' but the car started jumping. I lost control and spun, and I damaged the car so I couldn't continue."

Hakkinen's recollection of the incident doesn't really do it justice. After bouncing dramatically over the exit kerb coming out of the final corner, the car pitched left into the outside barrier, before spinning across the track and hitting the inside wall. With a wheel and his front wing missing, he was right to describe the car as 'damaged' though.

"It was an amazing feeling during the early part of the race, but in the end it was a disaster," says Hakkinen, who was distraught when he returned to the pits. "It was a big frustration, a big disappointment."

However, help was at hand in the McLaren motorhome, as Ron Dennis did his best to console a man that he was convinced had the potential to achieve great things.

"I was really disappointed, but Ron was just smiling," says the Finn. "He said to me 'man, don't worry about it.' Well, he didn't call me man, he called me Mika, but he knew that there was a great future in front of us.

Mika Hakkinen battles with Jean Alesi for the lead of the Portugeuse Grand Prix © LAT

"I'm usually a positive-minded guy, so I tried to look at the positives. I wanted to learn from my mistake, not do it again, and go forwards. I thought that my first win would come soon, but it took a long time, a really long time."

In the years that immediately followed Senna's departure from McLaren, it was easy to forget just how stunning Hakkinen had been during that brief period that he had a half-decent car underneath him.

When McLaren did return to the front of the field, Hakkinen became their first world champion since the Brazilian. But when the intensity of the Formula One circus became too much, Hakkinen hung up his helmet at the end of 2001, deciding to settle into the family life. However, just three years later that racing itch needed scratching again, and he returned to racing, this time in the DTM with Mercedes.

The man that appeared in the Hockenheim DTM paddock in April 2005 was far more relaxed than the one that had left Suzuka in 2001, but gradually his intensity increased. Yes, he was racing for fun, but the desire to win started to take over again.

After two average campaigns, Hakkinen got himself sorted ahead of the 2007 season. It was all about the title now, and four front row starts from the first five races proved that he had lost none of his speed.

But it wasn't meant to be. Whether it was a damaged car, misfortune with safety cars, or heavy-handed officials, something always seemed to go wrong for the Finn.

A 22,000 euro fine and a 10-place grid penalty for what many neutrals believed to be at worst an 'optimistic' move on Martin Tomczyk at Barcelona, proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

During his time in the series, Hakkinen took particular joy from teasing the Germans with his great sense of humour (when he was in the mood for it), and more often than not his one-liners went straight over the heads of most in the paddock.

His name may be viewed as a loss to the tin-top series, but it's his phenomenal wit that will be missed the most, at least by those who understood it.