Mika
Häkkinen

Mika Häkkinen was born on 28 September 1968 in Vantaa. He started karting at the age of five and won several Finnish and Nordic titles during the 1980s. In 1987 he moved into Formula Ford and won the Finnish, Swedish and Nordic championships at the first attempt. In 1988 he took the Opel-Lotus Euroseries title, and in 1990 he won the British Formula Three Championship with West Surrey Racing.

He made his Formula One debut for Lotus at the 1991 United States Grand Prix. After two seasons there, finishing 15th and 8th in the championship, he joined McLaren in 1993, where he was a test driver. He moved into the race car for the last three events of the season and scored his first podium with third place in Japan. He ended 1994 fourth in the standings. In qualifying for the 1995 season finale in Adelaide he had a serious accident. In 1996 he finished fifth in the championship. His first win came at the 1997 European Grand Prix, and he ended that year sixth overall.

He won the world championship with McLaren in 1998 and 1999. In 1998 the title was settled in his favour at the final race in Japan, ahead of Michael Schumacher, making him Finland's second world champion. Finnish journalists named him Finnish Sports Personality of the Year. In 1999 he retained the title by two points from Eddie Irvine, again with a win in the Japanese finale. In 2000 he was runner-up to Schumacher.

Before the 2001 Italian Grand Prix he announced a break from racing for 2002. He took his last win that season at the United States Grand Prix and finished fifth in the standings. In July 2002 he announced his retirement from Formula One. Across 161 starts he took 20 wins, 26 pole positions and 51 podiums.

From 2005 to 2007 he drove for HWA in the DTM. He won at Spa-Francorchamps in 2005 and finished fifth in the championship. In 2007 he took his second win of the season at Mugello and ended the year seventh in the standings. In November 2007 he announced his withdrawal from competitive racing. He then worked in driver management and returned to McLaren as an ambassador in 2017.

Source: Wikipedia, “Mika Häkkinen”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.