Racing career

Mika has been driving since his 6. birthday.
During the years 1974 - 1986 he won 5 Finnish Championships in Formula K (karting).

1987

Finnish, Swedish and Nordic Champion in the Formula Ford 1600 - series

Service in the Finnish Army; Champion Opel Lotus Euroseries, Runner-up British GM Lotus series.

7. place in British F3

A breathtaking battle with Mika Salo sees Mika Häkkinen win the British F3-Championship with West Surrey Racing, landing 7 wins.
Heat winner in the Macau F3-GP, considered to be the World Championship in F3.

First Season in Formula 1 with Lotus-Judd, 15 races, finishes 15. with 2 points.

F1 Lotus-Ford, 15 races, 8. with 11 points

Starts the season as test driver for McLaren-Ford, gets to join the team for the final three races after the departure of Michael Andretti.
Scores a 3. place in Suzuka, finishes 13. overall with 4 points. Beats the late Ayrton Senna in qualifying.

Completes the Season as #1 driver for McLaren with the troublesome Peugeot engine, scoring 26 points and finishing 4. in the overall Championship.

Again McLaren is struggling with a powerlacking, unreliable engine delivered by Mercedes-Benz. On top of that the chassis is really bad. Mika finishes 7. overall with second places from Monza and Suzuka, a total of 17 points. Has to skip the Pacific GP in Aida, Japan because of an inflamed appendix. Last year´s worst accident was seen in Adelaide, Australia, where Mika suffered a skull fracture after hitting the wall with 170 km/h because of a deflated rear tire on his McLaren-Mercedes.

The start of the season proved to be difficult for Mika. Obviously he had not recovered mentally from his accident in Adelaide. He spun off the track on many occasions, and was losing battle to Coulthard in qualifying. By midseason however Mika made a stunning "comeback", and got back on the podium at the British GP, finishing third. In Monza he could have won, if it hadn´t been for his damaged front wing. Häkkinen scores 31 points and finishes 5. in the overall Championship points.
The McLaren MP 4/11 turned out better than its predecessor, nevertheless still lacking downforce to catch up with the Williams and Schumacher. Häkkinen continues with McLaren, and new recruit Adrian Newey from Williams will surely be helping to make the team a winning team again.

McLaren didn't found their best speed in the start of the season. After all they developed fast and the results became better as the season went by. The best race was the last one in Jerez, where Häkkinen took his first win and Coulthard finished 2nd. Häkkinen finished 3rd in Melbourne, Hockenheim and Suzuka. Mika scored 27 points and took the 6th place.

McLaren won the championship. McLaren won nine races out of seventeen (Mika 8, David 1) and they had 156 points. Mika also took the championship with the gap of 16 points to the 2nd, Michael Schumacher. Coulthard was 3rd in the final results. Mika Häkkinen is the first Finnish Formula One Championship winner after 16 years. 1982 Keijo "Keke" Rosberg won the championship, who is now Mika's manager. Who will it be 2014 ? Maybe Keke's son Nico (won the American Championship in karting)?

The 1999 Formula One season started surprisingly. McLaren's were in the lead as last year, but their reliability wasn't ready yet. Both McLaren's were forced to retire in Australia. Let's hope that McLaren has found the reliability in the next race !

Next race in Brazil !

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