The new book written by Mika Häkkinen returns to the time when the flaxen head from Vantaa ruled the formula world.
Mika and Erja Häkkinen got to enjoy many moments of joy and happiness in the formula pits. Zumawire / MVPHOTOS
Mika Häkkinen life on and off the race tracks was of great interest to the F1 star during his driving years.
And not only Finns. At the turn of the millennium, Häkkinen was by far the most famous Finn in the world.
An important part in the story of the flying Finn was also Erja-spouse.
The long-awaited first victory
An important moment. Mika Häkkinen stood on the podium for the first time as the winner of the F1 race in the final round of the 1997 season in Jerez, Spain. Zumawire / MVPHOTOS
Formula supplier Heikki Kullan written book Mika Häkkinen – The Flying Legend (Readme, 2022) recalls the Finnish driver’s driving years in the F1 series. The book focuses especially on the seasons 1997 and 1998, when Häkkinen finally broke into the sport’s brightest elite.
Häkkinen drove 161 races in the F1 series between 1991 and 2001, of which he won 20. However, he had to wait a painfully long time for the first full hit.
In the 1997 season without a single race, Häkkinen’s win column still looked like a round zero. There were already 95 GP starts behind, so the most hasty had time to declare Häkkinen as eternal second.
The winlessness had not been caught in the cage. Especially in the 1997 season, the unreliability of McLaren and especially the engine supplier Mercedes left deep scars on the entire nation. The first place, which already seemed almost certain, changed to puffs of smoke and interruptions painfully many times.
Finally, the ketchup bottle popped open at the last possible moment in the 1997 season.
Häkkinen became the winner of the race in Jerez, while the one who collided with Michael Schumacher earlier and secured the world championship Jacques Villeneuve and team mate David Coulthard still counted the Finn in the last round of the competition.
Few criticized the team-ordered career opening win, so many times bad luck had robbed Häkkinen of the prize he deserved. After the race, in the pits, Häkkinen’s first victory was celebrated with the same devotion as Villeneuve’s world championship.
Häkkinen himself also deservedly took the joy out of it.
– We had a super party after the race, from where I went to Marbella with my Finnish friends. We danced hard, and at the end of the evening I proposed to my ex-wife Erja there. It was hella fun and emotions were high, Mika unleashed his emotions even 25 years later.
Erja Häkkinen (née Honkanen) responded affirmatively to the proposal. The wedding was danced the following year. The couple had two children, Hugo and Aina. Häkkines separated in 2008.
Only Etyk harder stuff
The battles between Häkkinen and Michael Schumacher drew viewers to the televisions. PDO
In the following season, Häkkinen fought for the world championship against Schumacher.
The decision of the World Championship title in the final round of the season in Suzuka, Japan dominated the pages of the press both in Finland and around the world.
On the spot in Suzuka Keke Rosberg asked his esteemed entourage when anything related to Finnishness has been involved in such a media event and what could be the second most followed. The then CEO of Alko, which was one of McLaren’s sponsors Ilkka Suominen thought that perhaps such an event would have been the Second World War, but Keke reminded that there was no television then. So then it was decided to consider that perhaps the opening of the European Security and Cooperation Council (ESC) in Helsinki in 1975 would have gathered similar international interest.
In the book, Häkkinen thinks that his huge popular popularity was the sum of many things.
– The fact that my driving was followed so much in Finland was probably due to all the combined factors along my F1 career: all the difficulties with Lotus, there was no first win with McLaren anyway, there were a lot of interruptions, then the accident in Adelaide happened. When I put it all together, it had the effect that people got the idea of me that I’m a crazy person to be able to drive a car all the time and come back again and again after all that misfortune.
The italicized passages are extracts from 11.10. from the upcoming work Mika Häkkinen – Lentävä legenda (Readme, Heikki Kulta).