38 replies to this topic

[Ali_G]

This is what I cannot understand about Mika Hakkinen.

In 98 and on Hakkinen was described as one of the greatest drivers in the world. And rightly so. he got into a very exclusive club of F1 winners.

But this is what i cannot understand.

Pre 98 Coulthard was the faster driver at McLaren. Hakkinen wasn't even mentioned as being extraordinerally fast.

So what the hell was going on with Mika back then. And where did he get this pace from in the past few years to see him become the dominant driver at Mclaren.

Niall

[Greg L]

I've wondered the same thing. Many people chalk up Mika's excellent 1998 and 1999 results to a superior car, but Coulthard (who has never been slow) didn't show nearly the same results in the same car. Perhaps the 98 and 99 spec cars simply favored Mika's driving style or he just had a couple of incredibly good years.

At any rate, I think that Mika has always been very fast, though with little fanfare. Remember, this is the same guy that outqualified Senna in his first race for McLaren. He struggled with uncompetitive cars through the early years of his career (first with Lotus and then with McLaren), so perhaps he just needed a competitive car. Also, perhaps he was just a late bloomer. Some drivers (like MS and JV) were quick the minute they reached F1, while some drivers (like Mika) took time to develop their skills. Maybe he just finally matured into a top drawer drivier - it just took a bit of time.

[damonhillchamp96]

Mika has always been considered a very fast driver, but not a quick driver. He always had a tendancy to over cook it a bit. And that, as we all know, isn't a very quick way around the track. I personally hate Mika Hakkinen more than NASCAR. The Crying Finn should hand his two WDCs to Adrian Newey

[The_Z_Man]

Originally posted by damonhillchamp96
The Crying Finn should hand his two WDCs to Adrian Newey

Should Damon Hill do the same ?

The_Z_Man

[Nathan]

Yes, as shall JV (oh Im goona get it for that one:))

[Ross Stonefeld]

damonhillchamp96, you used to be a chief mechanic yes? I find it odd that you would miss over the concept that it still takes a great driver to drive a great car

[jimmy mike]

Some history of Hakkinen...


1991 Lotus: Hakkinen outperformed every team mate he had that year.

1992 Lotus: Hakkinen was one of stars of season. Great drives at Magny Course, Spa, Hungaroring. Every team manager was interested of Hakkinen. Frank Williams signed with Hakkinen and Hakkinen was supposed to drive along side with Alain Prost in 1993 at Williams. But after very unfortunate events, Frank was forced to release Hakkinen and Ron Dennis immediately took Hakkinen in his team.

1993 McLaren: Test driver at McLaren. Finally when Hakkinen got his chance to show at Estoril, Hakkinen outqualified mighty Ayrton Senna. Hakkinen was also quite close to Senna on remaining races at Japan and Australia.

1994 McLaren: During the pre-season winter testing, already retired Alain Prost came to test McLaren at Estoril. Ron Dennis was hoping to lure Alain for his team and so he was keeping one seat open for Alain. But during the test Alain was something like 1,5 seconds per lap slower than Hakkinen and it was clear message for Alain Prost to stay as a retired racing driver. Martin Brundle got that open seat. Hakkinen obviously outperformed Brundle. Hakkinen was one of bad boys of the season by doing some serious kamikaze moves.

1995 McLaren: Hakkinen put his team mate Nigel Mansell very bad light by performing reasonably well with the car which was impossible to drive. Hakkinen send Mansell to the early retirement. Hakkinen also outperformed his second team mate Mark Blundell. Hakkinen had that massive accident at Austrilia which put him in the coma.

1996 McLaren: Hakkinen clearly outperformed his team mate David Coulthard. Coulthard was way much slower than Hakkinen, something like 0.6 seconds per lap almost every race. Since then Coulthard has improved tremendously his pace compare to Hakkinen.

1997 McLaren: Hakkinen had a difficult first part of season and Coulthard is quicker than Hakkinen. Hakkinen was able to get rid of some setup problems and during the second part of season, Hakkinen is again quicker than Coulthard. Only incredibly bad luck kept Hakkinen of winning the race. Final race at Jerez Ron Dennis used team orders in favor of Hakkinen, so that Hakkinen could finally get his first race win which he should have done some 4 years ago.

1998, 1999, 2000 ...Everybody knows what happened at those years.

[Singing in the rain]

He has stopped overdriving the car and sure learnt a lot over the years. That crash in australia changed him to. I just hope that his new starting technique isn't the third phase of his career.

I can't help comparing Häkkinen with my favorite driver and must say that Mika has put his act together in a better way. They were pretty much alike in -97.

Just get the car off the line next time Mika!

[Laphroaig]

I always get the feeling that Hakkinen excels in a 'perfect' (for him) car. But as soon as the car has a little balance/stability/drivability/whatever problem he falls back. Sometimes even behind Coulthard.
But if the car is 'perfect' his speed and consistency make him come out on top. That is, as long as he doesn't have to overtake someone on the track who is about equally as fast.

And to finish off my over analysis of McLaren.

Coulthard is faster when the car is not 'perfect', but then the car becomes slower than the Ferrari's, so most of the time he doesn't end up at the top of the podium. Besides Coulthard CAN overtake in a do-or-die fashion, but his biggest problem is that he starts complaining that the other driver didn't leave enough room, thereby devaluating what was acctually a great pass.

(p.s: The 97 car seemed to have had a starting mechanism which suited Coulthard really well, and that led him to believe he would win that 1st corner in Australia '98 ;) )

[Xodiac]

Seems like all he needed was that first win, even if it was gifted to him by JV. Some guys are like that.

Guess not Jean Alesi.......(ouch)

[Rene]

Many people rated MH highly before his rise to the WDC. When I was in Montreal in '98, I picked up a magazine dedicated to the first 50 years of F1 (or so it was called), and in that article they rated MH the tenth best driver of the 90's, at the time of the printing (I guess it was printed in late 1997) it said MH was one of the best drivers to not win a GP, and the authors thought that despite his lack of a win was still one of the best drivers of the 90's.....I guess they turned out to be right.....my point (yes I have a point) is that many had saw the skill of MH prior to his WDc...

[Vetinary]

Hakkinen was always considered to be a fast driver. With the exeption of 1993 (team mate - Senna) and 1997 (DC), he always finished the season with more points than his team mates.

I remember he was also considered as a slightly wild driver, who tends to take unnecessary risks from time to time. He was even banned from one race (In 1994 or 1995) because of dangerous driving.

Hakkinen's example just proves that in order to succeed in F1, you've got to have a top drive. If you count out his 3 races in Mclaren in 1993, he was never driving for one of the best two teams until 1998.

[Mila]

Originally posted by Ali_G
Pre 98 Coulthard was the faster driver at McLaren. Hakkinen wasn't even mentioned as being extraordinerally fast.

you have GOT to be kidding!

thank you, jimmy mike, for an infinitely more reasonable assessment.

[silver fan]

Pre 98 Hakkinen was more often than not faster than Coulthard. Do your homework Nial.

[damonhillchamp96]

He may have been faster, but didn't Coultard take 2 wins? Hakkinen won 1 race, but didn't Villenueve give him that win by backing off?

[baddog]

lots of us thought hakkinen was brilliant from almost day one of his career.

Shaun

[silver fan]

DHC96,

With regards to 97 that may well have been the case but it was Hakkinen that lost at least 4 races that he probably would have won were it not for his car breaking. At the end of the season nobody from Autosport to Autocourse and everyone in between rated Coulthard higher than Hakkinen. Remember that Niall's initial preamble to this thread was that pre 98 Coulthard was quicker than Hakkinen, he wasn't. Granted he had better results in 97 but Hakkinen was visibly quicker, always has been.

[gerry nassar]

IN 97 DC faster than Mika - utter rubbish!!

For the early part of the season he was but from the Brittish GP (which Mika should have won if it wasnt for mechanical failure 3 laps from the end) onwards Mika outqualified DC in every race!

More of the same in 98. 99, 2000. In 2001 DC is a much much better driver (and all credit to him he is doing great) but just remember how much bad luck Mika is having.

[smarty]

Ali_G,

Rubbish is the right word for your MH posts. This is zillionth time that you post rubbish about MH but although you look like you didn't watch F1 in pre '98 or at least you didn't follow Mika's performance, you insist on not reading the information given here to you. Please read it and don't come back again and again same rubbish.

In '97, Mika DNF'ed 3 times while leading (2 of them through the end of the race) and 1 time while he is in 3rd position. Does this tell you something? Also go to Forix and compare the qualifying performances of DC and MH in 97. Current season shows the role of luck in F1, DC looks very determined now but is the point difference between them representative of their abilities?

During 96 and 97 I remember several times Ron Dennis naming Mika as the future WDC but I didn't hear the same even once for DC. So how can you claim that "Hakkinen wasn't even mentioned as being extraordinerally fast".

[Juan]

To anyone well versed in F1,there never was no pre 98 mystery.

Mika needs the best car to win races and fight for the WC,just like every other driver on the grid except michael schumacher.

Mika was just another driver pre 98 cause he never had the best car,or more importantly adrian newey.

He only started to push for wins in mid 97 because by then newey had started his input in mclaren.

If newey never came to mclaren Mika would be remembered as just another fast driver,IE...Jean alesi.

And his record wouldnt of even matched alesi's

Mika fans go on and on how mika destroyed DC in 98,99.

Well if mika destroyed DC in 98 then DC is destroying mika in 2001.

The truth is,that in both these years mika and DC has horrible luck.
DC was pretty poor in 99 though,it was mainly his fault.

In their 6 years together Mika has never been decisively better than DC.

[Billy]

Originally posted by Xodiac
Seems like all he needed was that first win, even if it was gifted to him by JV.

It was also gifted by DC. According to Racefax

In order for Hakkinen to have been in position to gain the win by gift, he'd had to first get around Coulthard, who had been leading the McLaren squad since the first pit stop. Coulthard rather obviously pulled over to let Hakkinen by on lap 66 (of 69) something it is said that the team had been telling him to do for some 10 or 12 laps, or since shortly after Schumacher had gone into the gravel excavation business.

Coulthard, who could have had his third win of the year, is said to be outraged at having to give it up to Hakkinen. Between them, Coulthard had the quicker pitstops and the faster race lap and never looked in danger from Hakkinen. Asked why he had surrendered second to Hakkinen, Coulthard said, "That's a good question. I haven't really got an answer for that." After the race, he spent quite some time with Ron Dennis, presumbably getting his answer. England's Motoring News reported last Thursday that Dennis eventually assembled the entire team to explain what had happened.

[PK]

Juan, I am sorry to disappoint you, but McLarens rise back to top had more to do with Mercedes than Adrian. The 97 car was already extremely fast from the first race and should've won a lot more races if it weren't for the reliability, which for some odd reason always seem to be more problem for Mika than David (as MS example has shown, luck is the most important quality of a succesful driver).

Also no championship in the 90s have been won with an inferior car. All championship cars have been either dominating or one of two best cars.

As to Coulthard, he is definitely one of the top drivers (top5) and always has been. If he weren't I'm sure there would have been plenty of drivers happy to take his seat.

[Nikolas Garth]

Originally posted by Juan
To anyone well versed in F1,there never was no pre 98 mystery.

Mika needs the best car to win races and fight for the WC,just like every other driver on the grid except michael schumacher.

Mika was just another driver pre 98 cause he never had the best car,or more importantly adrian newey.

He only started to push for wins in mid 97 because by then newey had started his input in mclaren.

If newey never came to mclaren Mika would be remembered as just another fast driver,IE...Jean alesi.

And his record wouldnt of even matched alesi's

Mika fans go on and on how mika destroyed DC in 98,99.

Well if mika destroyed DC in 98 then DC is destroying mika in 2001.

The truth is,that in both these years mika and DC has horrible luck.
DC was pretty poor in 99 though,it was mainly his fault.

In their 6 years together Mika has never been decisively better than DC.

That is such a poor post, on so many levels.

Why do you think MS respects Mika so much????

[Gary Grant]

PK, I would dispute your statement that reliability problems have afflicted MH more than DC - in the first 3 seasons at McLaren-Mercedes (97-99) Mika had 7 mechanical retirements to David's 12, and last year David had more too. So if anyone deserves a little luck with reliabilty its Coulthard.

[The_Real_CT]

Hakkinen has always been naturally quick although he was also pretty wild in the early stages of his career.

At Lotus he also did a bone headed thing where he was stopped by the police for driving down the wrong way of a major road leading to Silverstone because he was running late for something, that was the wildness of youth but under Senna's guidance from 1993 onwards at McLaren he reached the maturity and level headedness that he was previously lacking.

Who can forget his terrible injuries in 1995 and the courageous way he battled back from them, Wendlinger was never the same driver again after similar injuries but Hakkinen emerged an even better driver.

Prior to 1997 Jerez he was a modern day Chris Amon, i have lost count of the number of times Hakkinen had to retire while in the 1st two positions of a race and were it not for some bad luck he would have had several wins pre Jerez 97

[Billy]

Originally posted by PK
Juan, I am sorry to disappoint you, but McLarens rise back to top had more to do with Mercedes than Adrian.

Mika Hakkinen gives credit to another aspect of Adrian's skills when he describes his working relationship with Newey: "That dates back to 1997. I specifically remember working with him when I set my first pole position in 1997 at the Nurburgring."

For a driver to give an engineer credit for a pole position shows his great technical skills in setting up the car, as well as his undoubted excellence in his role as technical director and aerodynamicist.

[Juan]

Originally posted by PK
Juan, I am sorry to disappoint you, but McLarens rise back to top had more to do with Mercedes than Adrian. The 97 car was already extremely fast from the first race and should've won a lot more races if it weren't for the reliability, which for some odd reason always seem to be more problem for Mika than David (as MS example has shown, luck is the most important quality of a succesful driver).

Also no championship in the 90s have been won with an inferior car. All championship cars have been either dominating or one of two best cars.

As to Coulthard, he is definitely one of the top drivers (top5) and always has been. If he weren't I'm sure there would have been plenty of drivers happy to take his seat.

Rubbish.

If the macs were so fast at the start of the season why was DC 2 seconds slower than JV in qualifying at OZ?

Why did he qualify 10th? at brazil?

The macs were no match for the williams until the last quarter of the season when newey came along.


Garth sorry you feel that way but I just posted facts.

Mika was a nobody in pre 98.

You want proof?

F1 racing did a poll in 97 of the best 100 drivers
The group that did list were a whos who of F1 intellects.

Where was mika rated by all of them?
57th

If he was so good he would of done awesome stuff pre 97/98

Apart from the odd hotlap what did he do?
He never looked like winning a race until 97.

Michael respects him because he is a very good driver.
The grid has a bunch of very good drivers but.

[man from martinlaakso]

Ali_G, you wrote : "This is what I cannot understand about Mika Hakkinen.

In 98 and on Hakkinen was described as one of the greatest drivers in the world. And rightly so. he got into a very exclusive club of F1 winners.

But this is what i cannot understand.

Pre 98 Coulthard was the faster driver at McLaren. Hakkinen wasn't even mentioned as being extraordinerally fast.

So what the hell was going on with Mika back then. And where did he get this pace from in the past few years to see him become the dominant driver at Mclaren. "


First, MH has always been a very fast driver in a short distance (he outqualified Senna in his first MacLaren race).

Second, MH did not understand the big importance of the correct set-up in his early career. His feedback to the mechanics was poor (his english was not too good either).

Third, the car did not suit to his driving style, and so he had to change his style. If you look MH driving with a F3 car, you will immediately se the difference. In those days MH was much closer to MS style (very aggressive, not so smooth).

Fourth, McLaren took a dive in 1993-1996. The engine was not the best, and in the chassis side Williams was much ahead.

Fifth, the slicks were abonded and the grooved tyre came to the picture after 1997. That made MH stronger, because his worst rivals lost more than he with that change.

Sixth, in 1997 came Ilmor, late 1997 came Newey and Bridgestone had a big edge over Goodyear in the early 1998.

Seventh, success brings success and sterengthen your self-confidence.

DC has never been a faster driver during the whole season. MH has outqualified him in every season :

1996 : 12 - 4
1997 : 11 - 6
1998 : 13 - 3
1999 : 13 - 3
2000 : 10 - 7
2001 : 4 - 2

Total MH 63, DC 25

Some of you have written, that MH is extrimely fast, if the set-up is perfect, but that DC would be faster, if the set-up would be less perfect. It is exactly the other way round : with perfect set-ups MH and DC are practically as fast, the difference comes with the difference in the track profile MH being faster in Suzuka and DC in Magny-Cours and so on. But if the set-up is less perfect, DC is hurt more. There are several examples of situations, where MH has beaten DC with more than a minute, but the vice versa cases are much more rare. Usually MH will loose heavily to DC only if Mika's car is sick.

In the races MH usually has had better starts (not in this year, though), and DC has been more aggressive in overtaking. I have the feeling, that MH is a careful general, and he tries to overtake only if his car is much faster or his set-ups are perfect (Magny-Cours and A1 in 1999). DC puts more often up a fight.

DC is a fast qualifier, but his race lap times are varying more than MH's (at least in the time before TC). That makes me believe, that DC is driving closer to his absolute maximum than MH.

[100cc]

Originally posted by Gary Grant
PK, I would dispute your statement that reliability problems have afflicted MH more than DC - in the first 3 seasons at McLaren-Mercedes (97-99) Mika had 7 mechanical retirements to David's 12, and last year David had more too. So if anyone deserves a little luck with reliabilty its Coulthard.

The reason why people seem to think that hakkinen has had way more tech. dnf's is because mika has often been in the lead of a race when his car has broken down(97 onwards).

I counted from forix that since 95(I believe thats the year) mika has had only one more technical dnf(+last race, if it was driver or tech. I don't know), and some are disputable for both drivers(i.e if a start stall was because of driver or technical mishap, or if a drivers slight crash caused the driver to later retire due to suspension failure etc.) So basically during their time as team mates they are tied.



And by no means was mika ever thought of as a slow driver.

[RaggedEdge]

Originally posted by smarty
Ali_G,

Rubbish is the right word for your MH posts. This is zillionth time that you post rubbish about MH but although you look like you didn't watch F1 in pre '98 or at least you didn't follow Mika's performance, you insist on not reading the information given here to you. Please read it and don't come back again and again same rubbish.

In '97, Mika DNF'ed 3 times while leading (2 of them through the end of the race) and 1 time while he is in 3rd position. Does this tell you something? Also go to Forix and compare the qualifying performances of DC and MH in 97. Current season shows the role of luck in F1, DC looks very determined now but is the point difference between them representative of their abilities?

During 96 and 97 I remember several times Ron Dennis naming Mika as the future WDC but I didn't hear the same even once for DC. So how can you claim that "Hakkinen wasn't even mentioned as being extraordinerally fast".

I tend to agree. Ali_G, you also started this topic which was not well liked after Spanish GP:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why is this.

Us MS fans have just pointed out that MS outpaced Mika throughout the race weekend.

MS lost out to Mika in the last pit stop because there was something wrong with the tyre.

Why can't they just own up that MS was faster than Mika.

Niall

Not very reasonable.

Try to get over with your hate of MH, please.

[RaggedEdge]

On a lighter note, the real Ali G got deservedly two BAFTA awards.

[Witt]

originally posted by Jaun
You want proof?

Since when has F1 racing been "proof"?

If you are a true F1 fan you'd realise that to win in this sport you have to have a great car. Before mid-97, Mika had never driven in a car that could consistently challenge for wins at every GP. And as soon as he got that car in mid-97, i think you know as well as anyone that he's never looked back. He should have won 4 other races that year (Britain, Hungary, Austria, Luxembourg), but was let down by mechanical failure.

Originally posted by Jaun
If the macs were so fast at the start of the season why was DC 2 seconds slower than JV in qualifying at OZ?

Why did he qualify 10th? at brazil?

ahhmm..... I believe Mika qualified his Mclaren 4th for that Grand Prix, excluding Villeneuve, he was only 2 tenths behind Schuey in second place. Now i don't want to turn this into a DC slogging match, because that's not what i intended. What i intended to do was to point out the stupidity of your argument.

[man from martinlaakso]

Juan, you wrote : "Rubbish.

If the macs were so fast at the start of the season why was DC 2 seconds slower than JV in qualifying at OZ? "


However, MH qualified to a fourth place and he was VERY near to MS, who was second. I think, that DC just had his set-ups wrong and that is why he underperformed in the qualifyings. In the actual race DC won and MH was third. I would call that a good performance from the drivers and the cars.

Juan, you have perhaps forgotten, that in Silverstone 1997 MH lead the race JaVi trailing him and then six laps before the end Mika's engine failed and he lost a very probable win. That happened before Newey came to McLaren. Newey was later a factor in McLaren's raise, but a think that the strong Ilmor engine was even a bigger factor, when the factory got it to a reliable for in winter 1997 - 1998.

[Juan]

Originally posted by man from martinlaakso
Juan, you wrote : "Rubbish.

If the macs were so fast at the start of the season why was DC 2 seconds slower than JV in qualifying at OZ? "


However, MH qualified to a fourth place and he was VERY near to MS, who was second. I think, that DC just had his set-ups wrong and that is why he underperformed in the qualifyings. In the actual race DC won and MH was third. I would call that a good performance from the drivers and the cars.

Juan, you have perhaps forgotten, that in Silverstone 1997 MH lead the race JaVi trailing him and then six laps before the end Mika's engine failed and he lost a very probable win. That happened before Newey came to McLaren. Newey was later a factor in McLaren's raise, but a think that the strong Ilmor engine was even a bigger factor, when the factory got it to a reliable for in winter 1997 - 1998.

And you forget that JV was in the pits for about 40 seconds at silverstone..thats the REASON mika was ahead of him.

Mclaren only got near williams pace around austria which was when newey was part of mclaren.

[silver]

Mika Hakkinen has always been super-fast driver with huge amount of natural talent. There are many cases to prove this.
For example Mika`s qualifying performance against the grate Ayrton Senna is 3-3. They had 6 qual sessions together but Ayrton ended up outqualing him by 2-1.
Ayrton had really hard time believing Mika taking first corners in Estoril flat out since he had difficulties keeping his car on the track even when he was not flat there.

Mika`s accident probably made him a better driver in a long run.
He has said afterwards that before the accident when he had to improve his time he always thought that he simply had to drive the car faster.
He also learnt that in testing he did not have to push on the absolut limit all the time. Indeed if he drove about 90% of the maximum speed he would learn more from the car.

In early 1996 Mika`s first test after his horrible crash took place in Paul Ricard track. Michele Alboreto had given an interview a week before that that he thought Mika would never race again since they had been having a lunch together and Mika looked so bad then.
Well in Paul Ricard Mika ended up a second faster that Michael Schumacher a day earlier and also did a new lap record in the process.
I think that tells how naturally gifted driver Hakkinen really is.

In 1996 McLaren were said to be quite ok in the fast corners, not too bad in really slow corners but extremely bad in corners taken 120-160 kph.
Mika would have won in Spa(McLaren were on one-stopper, other top teams on 2-stopper) but Schumacher was lucky since his first pitstop came exactly at same lap than the safety car came to track because of Verstappen`s big crash.

In early part of 1997 Mika was having big difficulties with his car. He had started using right foot breaking again and also McLaren`s electronic diff gave him troubles. Team had huge troubles getting it right for Mika`s driving style since Mika uses more to steer the car than David does.

Mika switched back to two-pedal-system (left foot breaking) in pre Silverstone GP testing and outqualified DC ever since during that season. I do not know why Mika started the season with 3 pedals in the first place since he was the inventor of the 2 pedal system which he used from wintertesting 1994 onwards.

Dennis admitted that he has only once put a bet on his driver for a GP win and that was in Silverstone 1997. He would got his money back 300 times more.

Mika was probably the fastest driver of the late part of the 1997 season.

He retired from a lead in Silverstone, Austria and Nurburgring. In Nurburgring he was in a class of his own... leading a race by almost 20 seconds. In Hungary he was 4th when the hydraulics gave up but at that time he was in front of the race winner Villeneuve.
In fact in every race where Mika retired from the lead the winner was Villeneuve.

In the season ending Autosport Gerhard Berger said that put your money on Hakkinen for 1998 championship. He would not have said that if he did not believe in Mika.

[smarty]

This is from Atlasf1 97 post-season review:

http://www.atlasf1.c...ost/galvin.html

West McLaren-Mercedes Goodyear (4th - 63 points)
McLaren may look back on 1997 as the season when they started to win again, but I will look back on it as yet another season where they failed to live up to their promise. Sure, they scored 3 wins and had both drivers finish in the top 5, but the reliability of the cars (16 retirements from 34 races) was very poor and the cars usually dropped out when at the sharp end of the fighting. The arrival of Adrian Newey cannot completely account for the increased form, but they certainly owe their late season charge to his aerodynamic wizardry. Ilmor are the people I believe are the main reason for the improvement and also the main reason for retirement, with their engines being powerful but extremely prone to explosion. A good year and one which heralds the return of McLaren to the front ranks of F1.

Mika Hakkinen (5th - 27 points)
Both one of the most impressive and most disappointing drivers of 1997. Extremely quick over a single lap and remarkably fast in races, Mika, has suffered from the worst luck I can recall for a long time. He has taken poles, led laps and turned fastest race laps, but his maiden win was gifted to him by a slowing Williams driver. Of his speed and resilience there can be no doubt, but is Mika feted to be one of those drivers who will go down in history as "one of the best World Champions we never had"?

David Coulthard (3rd - 36 points)
David Coulthard has finished the season in 3rd place, 9 points ahead of his team mate, but most people would agree that he has been less impressive than Mika. The Scot started 1997 with a victory and this helped him to win the intra team war for the first few races, but after losing the Canadian GP because of a mechanical failure he seemed to lose something. Whether this was because Mika came on form is hard to tell, but from this point on David's form dropped. A second win at Imola showed a return to form but his Finnish colleague generally overshadowed him. There is more to come from Coulthard and if he can sustain the form he has shown sporadically throughout the year (including those demon starts) he will do well in 1998.

This is AtlasF1 Top10 for 97

http://www.atlasf1.c...st/galvin2.html

Atlas F1 Top 10
1. Jacques Villeneuve (Williams) 42
2. Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) 36
3. Giancarlo Fisichella (Jordan) 35
4. Mika Hakkinen (McLaren) 33
5. Olivier Panis (Prost) 24
6. Damon Hill (Arrows) 22
7. David Coulthard (McLaren) 14
= Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Williams) 14
9. Alexander Wurz (Benetton) 12
10. Jarno Trulli (Prost) 11

This is from 98 preview

http://www.atlasf1.c...iew/galvin.html

Mika Hakkinen
At the end of last season I said that Mika Hakkinen seemed feted to become "one of the best World Champions we never had" and, typically, I now have to eat my words. Finally, the Flying Finn seems to have the equipment to move a step forward and start winning races regularly (rather than having them gifted by other drivers) and even challenge for the title. As mentioned earlier, the only problem Mika has is that he seems to be harder on his car than his team mate, therefore suffering more retirements, and it is this that may cost him the title. This said, Mika is still the man I expect to walk away with the most silverware in 1998, and most importantly, the Drivers' title.

[man from martinlaakso]

Juan, JaVi had his problems in Silverstone, but the fact, that MH was leading the race, when the race was almost over, proove that the potential of the Mac car was big already in 1997. The unreliability on the Ilmor engine took several wins from Mika's hands. The most memorably thing happened in Nuerburgring, when a solid race leader (MH) and number two driver (DC) had their DNF in the same (43th) lap. Newey came to McLaren in fall 1997, but naturally his impact to the 1997 car was probably seen in the last two races, if it had an effect at all. It will always take a time, before a designer is productive in a new team.

Smarty, a good post. Nice to see those predictions.


Silver, a very good post, too. I agree almost all you wrote. Just one detail :

"In early 1996 Mika`s first test after his horrible crash took place in Paul Ricard track. Michele Alboreto had given an interview a week before that that he thought Mika would never race again since they had been having a lunch together and Mika looked so bad then.
Well in Paul Ricard Mika ended up a second faster that Michael Schumacher a day earlier and also did a new lap record in the process.
I think that tells how naturally gifted driver Hakkinen really is."


According to his book MH was about half a second faster than MS, not a whole second.

When the doctor, who was one of the resposible ones for Mika's health after the Adelaide crash, took him to air port several weeks after the accident, MH was very worried. "Don't drive that fast, he said". Because the doctor was driving about 40 miles in an hour, he thought that this would surely be the curtains for MH as a F1 driver. MH's ability to recognoze moving things was damaged, and so the scenery looked to attack to him from his point of view. This situation was corrected in a few weeks and that allowed MH to continue his F1 career (I think, that he was 5th in that year in Australia).

[Dudley]

Sixth, in 1997 came Ilmor

News to Ilmor I suspect who seem to be under the impression they'd been supplying engines to McLaren since 95.

[man from martinlaakso]

Dudley, you wrote : "News to Ilmor I suspect who seem to be under the impression they'd been supplying engines to McLaren since 95."


That might be so, but only the Ilmor in 1997 and after that was a powerful tool. Unfortunately it was pretty unreliable, and tht is the reason why McLaren ws not fighting for the WCC title in reality in 1997. When the engine became reliable, it was the best engine in the field in 1998 and 1999.