Lando Norris is now a Formula 1 race winner, but he is not the only driver who had to wait a long time for their first big hit. F1 history is filled with stories of drivers who had to work really hard for their long awaited first victory. In this episode: The Flying Finn, two time world champion Mika Hakkinen.
Some drivers get their first victory due to their own incredible talent. Some drivers get it due to their car just being so much better than the rest of the field. And some get it due to getting a little bit lucky with things completely out of their control. For Mika Hakkinen, it was a combination of all three.
Hakkinen’s pace and potential had always been there, but it just never quite strung together properly to make it all stick. That potential was already visible during his first year at McLaren, in 1993. He was only supposed to be a reserve driver there after two decent but lackluster seasons at Lotus. However, near the end of the season, the relationship between McLaren and regular driver Michael Andretti had become so toxic that Andretti left the team with three races left in the season. Hakkinen jumped in, immediately outqualified the other regular driver - three-time world champion Ayrton Senna - and in the next race he would finish third to get his first podium in his career. After only two races with the team!
Clearly it was enough to land Hakkinen a new contract at McLaren, even though 1994 was off to a terrible start for him. He retired with mechanical issues six times in the first seven races. He got third in the one race he did finish, but that was in one of the darkest days in F1 history: the San Marino Grand Prix, where Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna died in crashes and Rubens Barrichello was injured in a separate accident, along with several marshalls and spectators. Clearly, Hakkinen didn’t really get to celebrate that podium.
| Mika Hakkinen | |
|---|---|
| Year of first win | 1997 |
| Races before first win | 96 |
| Podiums before first win | 15 |
A terrible accident threatens his career
The rest of ‘94, and well as ‘95 and ‘96, were similarly a mixed bag. Hakkinen would frequently finish on the podium, but for every podium he got he’d also get a DNF. He was banned for one race for crashing into Barrichello, he’d miss another one for appendicitis surgery, and due to the McLaren car not being all that great in those years he’d also finish outside of the points a fair amount. Worst of the worst came in the 1995 season finale, in Australia. He crashed during qualifying at the fastest part of the circuit. His car became airborne and slammed into the barrier at a sideways angle. Hakkinen suffered a skull fracture and had it not been for the trackside doctors immediately jumping into action, it’s very possible he would have died right then and there. His heart had to be restarted twice on the way to the hospital and he had to stay in the critical care unit at the Adelaide Royal Hospital for two months.
Most drivers would - understandably - call it quits after an accident like that. But Hakkinen kept going, and he kept going strong. He ended the 1996 season on a high note and stayed on with McLaren for a few more years. His remarkable recovery had made him a crowd favorite and his excellent results made it so that he was suddenly in the spotlight as a potential future world champion. But for that, he’d first have to win a race though.
It didn’t look like that was going to happen in 1997. Over the course of the season he had gotten two more podiums, bringing his total to 15. He was so close to winning his first race three times during the year, but lost that chance each time due to mechanical failures or collisions. It just didn’t seem to be in the cards for him.
The McLaren MP4/12 that Hakkinen drove in 1997.
The European Grand Prix
The season finale was held at Jerez in Spain. It was Hakkinen’s 96th race, but nobody really paid any attention to him. That year’s title fight went down between Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher and they were separated by just a single point. What made the event even weirder, was that both Schumacher and Villeneuve, as well as Villeneuve’s teammate Heinz-Harald Frentzen, set the exact same time in qualifying.
Despite all the anticipation though, the race was pretty boring for the most part. Schumacher led for 40 laps without any real challenge from Villeneuve, although the Canadian was creeping closer and closer. By lap 48 Villeneuve had caught up to Schumacher, and that’s when it went down. They went side by side into the sixth corner, Villeneuve slightly ahead, when Schumacher suddenly turned into Villeneuve. The onboard camera left no debate about it: this was a deliberate move by Schumacher to knock Villeneuve out of the race. However, the exact opposite happened. Schumacher’s front wing tore off in the accident and he suffered a puncture, forcing him to retire while Villeneuve could keep going. The Canadian’s car had suffered severe damage though and he was going much slower than before. But that was fine for him, because he only needed to finish within the points to overtake Schumacher in the standings and become champion.
Where was Hakkinen in all of this? He had gotten up to third, which was now second with Schumacher out. He was miles behind Villeneuve, but the McLaren was lapping much faster than the Williams. Hakkinen began gunning it, with teammate David Coulthard giving him rear support from any possible other challengers. The Williams of Villeneuve changed from a distant dot on the horizon to a bright blue target right in front of him, and on the final lap Hakkinen managed to overtake him. Villeneuve didn’t even defend, knowing that his car wasn’t up to the task anymore. Hakkinen crossed the line and became a race winner, the first Finnish driver to win a race since his mentor Keke Rosberg in 1982.
The collision between Schumacher and Villeneuve.
The aftermath
Winning this race was a little bit like Carlos Sainz getting a podium in Abu Dhabi 2021. It was an incredible feat, it was well-deserved and it had been a long time coming, but the controversial ending to the thrilling title fight overshadowed the whole ordeal. Villeneuve was the champion in what would be his only championship. He would actually never even win a race again after that season. Schumacher was retroactively disqualified from the season for his move. And yet, in terms of Hakkinen, the biggest controversy was yet to come.
Two weeks after the race, The Times alleged that McLaren and Williams had made a deal that Williams would let Hakkinen through as long as the McLaren drivers would hold back Schumacher. The FIA rejected this claim at the time and upheld Hakkinen’s victory. And for a long time, that was the end of it. But then in 2014, Coulthard confirmed that Frank Williams and McLaren team principal Ron Dennis had indeed made that agreement. In 2021 that was again confirmed by Williams co-founder Patrick Head and Frank Williams’s son Jonathan, who both said they were made aware of it halfway through the race.
Does any of that take away from the fact that Hakkinen deserved this win? No, not at all. His first win may have been clouded by controversy but he still had proven his merit in all the years before and after that. He would go on to win the title in 1998 and 1999 to further stake his claim as one of the all time greats of Formula 1. He would ultimately retire in 2002 with two titles, 20 wins and 51 podiums to his name and would go on to become a mentor for young talents making their way through the ranks of racing.