In an exclusive series with PlanetF1.com, Mika Hakkinen has recounted every moment of his memorably up-and-down 1999 World Championship victory 25 years on...
Mika Hakkinen's 1999 season included driving errors, unreliability, and some in-fighting with McLaren teammate David Coulthard.
Salo flew to Austria straight after getting married to his long-term girlfriend, ready to step in and help Eddie Irvine take on the might of the McLarens – only for Hakkinen and Coulthard to send shivers down the spines of everyone at Ferrari as they locked out the front row once again. The man from Northern Ireland, free of having to worry about Schumacher and let off the leash by Ferrari, had the measure of Coulthard through the pit stop sequence – the Scot’s mind not fully focused on the job of beating Irvine after taking his teammate out of contention at the start.
“I was happy that the engine was running, and I was hoping that nobody would crash into me. I had to wait for all the cars to go past so I could spin the car around and continue. How did Dennis deal with the situation? After all, the worst thing McLaren could have at that point was two warring drivers, given Ferrari’s focus and support was being lined up firmly behind the increasingly dangerous Irvine.“We needed to talk immediately, not to let it go and to just start finding excuses. Let’s just clear it out straight away.
A poor start from Irvine, coupled with early race technical concerns resulted in escalating engine temperatures, saw him drop down to sixth, while Salo got the best of Coulthard to move up to second. Hakkinen’s car spun around and skittered across the gravel into the tyre barriers, with the Finn uninjured in the terrifying incident having not hit anything until coming to rest in the relatively soft tyre wall.
“The only thing that worried me was that I knew he would do what the team said. He would do what Ferrari said.“He was paid by Ferrari, and he had a contract with Ferrari and he has to respect that deal that he has made.“But, at the same time, I knew he was in a car he had no experience with, so there’s no way we could expect him to do some incredible performances. Even though he’s a great driver.”
“Of course not, because you’re going 330 kilometres per hour! Then when you go off the racetrack and go onto the grass or gravel, it is downhill. Mika Hakkinen was fortunate to escape unharmed from his scary crash at Hockenheim during the 1999 German Grand Prix.Having not won a race since his slice of fortune in Canada, Hakkinen was in dire need of a strong outing in Hungary – Budapest long having proven to be something of a ‘home race’ for travelling Finns showing up in Europe to cheer on their respresentatives.
Irvine was resigned to third place, while Salo had a disastrous weekend – only claiming 18th on the starting grid before racing to 12th and two laps down, with the substitute driver distraught as he felt he’d “let the team down”. “I think Ferrari was again on the podium, again in the points and scoring a podium. A victory is a victory but the points are what counts.”
But the opportunity to get one over on Ferrari went begging again, as Coulthard made a slightly better start than Hakkinen and passed his teammate around the outside of La Source – the two cars making slight contact as Hakkinen held back on the brakes to ensure harder contact wasn’t made. “It wasn’t an easy decision. But we’re just not prepared to sacrifice our integrity. This isn’t a sport for weak-minded people.
With the benefit of 25 years of retrospection, how does Hakkinen look back on that day at Spa – a day that underlined he couldn’t rely on the support of his teammate any longer.“But I was so furious during that race. “There were two things, you know, I could be the leader of the team. I can win the races, David cannot.
“So, if the team told David to slow down, David would have come and said, ‘Okay, now we send the lawyer to talk to you guys because you broke the contract’.With Frentzen coming home third and Irvine fourth, Hakkinen moved back into the lead of the championship by a solitary point over Irvine, with Coulthard up to third despite his dreadful start to the year.
Put to him that Max Verstappen today would likely take a much harder stance towards his team, does Hakkinen look back on that unwillingness to call his team out as being a weakness, or is he proud to have achieved what he did without compromising his principals?“But, at the same time, I probably don’t want to admit a feeling that being that way would be my weakness.
With Salo leading the Ferrari charge in sixth, and Irvine in eighth, the cards were lining up nicely for Hakkinen as the lights went out and he held onto his lead. “Again, I had a tactic in that race where I needed to go flat out. Again, I think I had a three-stop tactic, other drivers had a two or one-stop tactic.
“You know, ‘Why didn’t I take care of myself better? Why did I have a flu? Why did I have this, and why did I select first gear?’ Unfortunately for Hakkinen, the helicopter cameras chose not to allow Hakkinen to have his moment in peace, zooming in on the Finn’s isolation – leading fans and even the media to come down hard on his vulnerability.
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