| Name |
Mika Hakkinen |
| Height |
|
| Naionality |
Finnish |
| Date of Birth |
28-September-1968 |
| Place of Birth |
Vantaa, Finland |
| Famous for |
Formula One Racing Driver |
Mika Hakkinen is a Finnish racing driver and two-time Formula One World Champion. After success in karting and a near win at the 1990 Macau Grand Prix, Hakkinen joined Lotus in 1991 where he remained until 1992. Hakkinen joined McLaren as a test driver in 1993 initially as a backup for Ayrton Senna and took on the responsibility of race driver after Michael Andretti was dismissed by the team after that year's Italian Grand Prix.
In 1994, he became the lead driver after Senna left to join Williams. Following a life-threatening injury during qualifying for the 1995 Australian Grand Prix, Hakkinen made a considerable improvement in 1996 and took his first victory at the 1997 European Grand Prix. Hakkinen won back to back titles in 1998–99 in battles with Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine respectively. In 2000, Hakkinen won 4 races but conceded the title to Schumacher with 2001 yielding two victories and the announcement of a sabbatical that later turned into retirement. Hakkinen joined Lotus in 1991. He qualified 13th for his Grand Prix debut in Phoenix, and would also have finished the race in the same position but his car experienced an engine failure on lap 60. Hakkinen scored his first Grand Prix points two rounds later in Imola, where he finished fifth from 25th on the grid, three laps behind the race winner, Ayrton Senna. Hakkinen finished the season in equal 15th alongside Satoru Nakajima and Martin Brundle. In 1993, Hakkinen joined McLaren as test driver with a view to be promoted into the race team later on.[citation needed] In Monaco he returned to racing with a guest drive in the Porsche Supercup race, an event he dominated. His hopes of stepping up to the race team were realised after Monza, when Michael Andretti left F1 after disappointing results. Hakkinen's McLaren race debut in Portugal was impressive. In his first outing for the team, he outqualified their star driver Ayrton Senna. Unfortunately, when pushing too hard through the final corner of the track during the race, he ran wide onto the dirty side of the kerb, launching the car towards the pit wall. At the time he was running in a point-scoring position. He went on to score a podium finish fifteen seconds behind his triple world champion team-mate during the next weekend at Suzuka, his first career podium.
During 1993, Hakkinen, along with Ayrton Senna, tested the Lamborghini V12 engine in a modified version of the McLaren MP4/8 race car dubbed the "MP4/8B" at both Estoril and Silverstone. Both drivers were impressed with the engine, with Hakkinen reportedly lapping Silverstone some 1.4 seconds faster in the MP4/8B with its V12 engine than he had with the team's race car fitted with the Ford V8. The MP4/14, once again designed from the pencil of Newey, was also a competitive car capable of fighting for the victory, though more fragile than its predecessor. The climb to the World Title was more difficult than in 1998. Despite a more competitive Ferrari, Schumacher finished out of the game in the mid-season because of a serious accident during the Grand Prix at Silverstone. The world seemed so closer to Hakkinen, but despite this the Finn was able to celebrate the second world title in a row after the last Grand Prix at Suzuka in which he managed to win finishing ahead of Michael Schumacher and Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine to another thus concluding the world with 76 points and 2 points separating Eddie Irvine finished second with 74 points. Team AMG China has entered a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup – 6 Hours of Zhuhai race, which will see Hakkinen make his ILMC debut in the GT3-based machine.
