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“To be honest, I was not so worried about Michael because the MP4/13 was just so damn quick. I was more worried about my team-mate David Coulthard. He wasn’t a very nice guy, not very nice to me. He had this massive will to win and wanted to kick my arse. We saw in the first race that we were so much quicker than anyone else. It was ridiculous. We weren’t even maximising our performance. Luckily David had quite a few mechanical failures while I was scoring points, and Ferrari started to get their act together. Then I had some mechanical problems and Ferrari became more reliable, scoring points when we did not. Their reliability was incredible. I asked Stefano Domenicali about it recently. He told me they were testing at Fiorano seven days a week. Every nut and bolt they were testing for hours, days, weeks on end. Stefano reckoned they’d done about 35 grands prix before the first race of the season. Meanwhile we would run at Silverstone for a few hours a day, and it was nearly snowing early in the year. It was impossible to compete with them on the pre-season testing kilometres."

“Anyway, Ferrari kept improving, and we had to reduce some of our ‘technical advantages’ like the two brake pedals, remember? That was worth about four-tenths per lap. It looked like I could lose the championship and I thought, ‘If I don’t win it this year I’m never going to do it.’ Michael fought until the end. We were level on points after Monza, but I won the last two races. So, it was beautiful, winning that championship title against Michael.”

You made hard work of your second title the following year. What was making life difficult for you?

MH: “Yes, you’re right. It was a very difficult year. Everything had seemed, ‘OK, I feel good,’ but we had changed our tactics to beat Ferrari. After Michael’s accident Irvine was winning races for them. My team-mate was also winning. The championship was tight even though I’d won four races coming to Monza. Our tactic was to race flat out, every lap like a qualifying lap, which was no problem except that in Italy I was on antibiotics because I had a hell of a sinus infection. it was affecting my performance."

“I was not 100% on race day. So, coming down to the first chicane, in the lead after 30 laps, I accidentally selected first gear instead of second and spun off. At Monza the RPM difference between second and first is huge, so you need a very high throttle blip from the computer – or the rears will lock up. The team had not put the numbers in the computer for this so the rear tyres locked and I was off."

“It was my mistake selecting the wrong gear, but the throttle setting was not high enough, so I knew immediately the game was over. I was so bitterly disappointed with myself, although the rear wheels should not have locked. I was so upset, I didn’t feel well, and I wanted to win that race in front of the Ferrari fans at Monza. Emotionally I just collapsed, totally lost it, but we beat Ferrari in Japan and I won the championship by just two points.”

When you look back on your career in your old age what will be the highlights? One might be the sensational overtake at Spa in 2000 I guess?

MH: “Wow, good question. Hopefully I will reach my old age and look back, maybe with a glass of good wine, whatever. No, it won’t be the overtaking manoeuvre at Spa. It will be understanding how precious life is after my accident, how important people are in your life, the people who are there for you. Life is fragile, so you must take care of yourself, your friends, your fans. I appreciate all this after what happened in Adelaide. When you are in the Formula 1 world you have to remember they are not all there just for racing, for winning. There are people who care about you. When I joined McLaren I was only 24. Jo Ramirez was taking care of me. He was fantastic. He made me feel so comfortable in the team, and that was really good for me."

“So, if I look back, it’s not about great overtaking, how fast Mika was, it’s about all those people in my life, in my career.”

At the end of 2001 you took a sabbatical from Formula 1. People thought you might come back, but you retired. Why did you decide to stop?

MH: “Hmm… I just felt burnt out. Completely finito. Even after having time off and a possibility to come back, I knew that my mind and my body were not capable of performing at the level Formula 1 requires. That was the biggest influence. I was just burnt out, you know. That’s what it was. Simple as that.”

What do you make of Formula 1 today? Does it still interest and excite you?

MH: “On the technical side, the new technologies, there’s always something wrong. It’s never totally right. What’s important for the fans is that the cars have to look spectacular, look beautiful, and Formula 1 needs innovations that people can see and understand. In general I think it has developed in a good way to be where it is today. We have two teams racing so hard for victory. Red Bull doing a great job, and Mercedes catching up, even if they don’t always know why. So, for me, the racing aspect is good."

“The atmosphere in the paddock is really cool. It’s much more open, more fun out there, and I don’t see too many negatives. It’s a very complicated business and people are working so hard, working like crazy. I’m not going to sit here on my sofa in Monaco and criticise these people who work so hard, committing their lives to the sport. So yeah, I think Formula 1 is doing a fantastic job right now.”

Your two youngest children are karting now so might we see another Häkkinen at the front of the grid in the not-too-distant future?

MH: “Aha, well, maybe. Ella and Daniel are karting, and they like it, but getting as far as Formula 1, for instance, is the same old story, just like it has always been. You need the talent, you need a passion, and the will to fulfil your goals – and you need a hell of a lot of money – millions of euros. So far my kids love what they’re doing, that’s great, but it’s also about a commitment from me and my wife, what we decide to do. To reach the top levels of motor racing is a big commitment, an unbelievable journey. You cannot go half way. It’s maximum or nothing.

“Daniel is eight years old, Ella is 11, so maybe if you ask me in five or six years’ time I’ll give you the answer. Then we will have seen how they develop, how well they have learnt. If they succeed. I will call you to help find some sponsors!”

What about you. Are you karting for fun, keeping your eye in?

MH: “I’ve been thinking about it because karting is such an excellent exercise for your body. It is beautiful exercise because it requires every muscle in your body to perform in a kart. So yeah, I’m considering it, not indoors but out on a track where you have some power."

“But I’ll tell you something, I am not racing in the rain, no way. I’ve lived in the Monaco sunshine for too long. Not all Finns like the rain you know.”

In 1990 Mika Häkkinen won nine of the 17 British Formula 3 races and finished second in a further five for WSR. His closest challenger – Mika Salo – ended the season 23 points behind the future two-time world champion. However, despite Marlboro backing WSR couldn’t carry any branding in the British championship so was sent over to Europe to compete in three races and see how they compared. 

A round of the Italian Formula 3 Championship at Imola was first and, having changed from Avon tyres to Michelin rubber, Bennetts pondered how to best work the tyre allocation.

“We were only allowed ten tyres for the whole weekend so we used them very carefully, we worked out a strategy. We were against 42 cars, 40 of them were Dallaras, mainly with Alfa engines. We arrived with a Mugen-Honda so we were the odd ones out. Mika, myself and the other engineer drove round in our hire car, did a few laps and decided on setup.”

Häkkinen qualified on pole in the first session using only one set of tyres. “Then the Italians panicked because we were in P1. They were all running no downforce, but in qualifying you want to be quick round the corners so they saw our car and all started cranking wing on. Mika panicked a bit, I said ‘don’t worry; they’re now using their second set of tyres in second qualifying. We are going to sit here, sit tight and not use our second set, we’ll save them for Sunday’s race.’”

They went out, scrubbed them, came in and took them off, sitting in the pits with no wheels on the car. Just at the end of the second session they were bumped to second. “Sunday morning we put on our other pair of new tyres and we blitzed everyone in the warm up so they got even more panicky. They were shaking their head, ‘how can this team come to a new track with this Ralt car and a Honda engine and be this quick?’

“They then picked on us in scrutineering: your seatbelts are not legal, your fire bottle is not legal. They had our car pulled apart for three or four hours. Luckily the Italian Ralt agent was there and he came and helped us out with the translation. Eventually they conceded it was legal. We went into the race and Mika won it comfortably so a tick in the box from Phillip Morris.”

Next up was the final round of the German Formula 3 Championship at Hockenheim, which WSR had never seen before. “We got some advice from a team what gear ratios we should be using and they tucked us up big time. The gear ratios were miles out, the car was far too stiff in the chicanes and we had a misfire on the engine as well. We were panicking and on Friday night we were about 22nd out of 28 cars.

“Some German journalist came down and said ‘you British champions are supposed to be good!’ I said ‘we’re OK, we just have a few problems to sort out!’ 

“We had a spare car there, the Leyton House car, and we took every electrical component off it we could think of. Everything was changed; we had to fix the misfire. We changed the springs, dampers, ratios and went out on Saturday morning with old tyres. Mika came round with a thumbs up, misfire fixed. Michael Schumacher [who had dominated the season] was sitting there, arms folded, because he as on pole and second qualifying only had about 20 minutes to go."

“Mika came in and said ‘it’s much better over the chicanes, the gearing is better, give me the new tyres’. Then bang, pole position. Schumacher then went out and couldn’t get near us.

“The Marlboro man was there and he said ‘I want you to come across the start line before Schumacher comes out the stadium’. I said ‘blimey, that’s a tall order Graham but we’ll do our best’. Mika did it – we crossed the line about five seconds ahead of Schumacher.

It has to be Mika Häkkinen, an opponent for seven years, with good times and bad. Good times when developing the McLaren, bad times when we ran at the front. He was very quick. Like all Scandinavian drivers, he’d been left-foot braking since way back in his career, whereas I was a bit late perfecting that.

The rivalry came to a head at the Belgian Grand Prix in 1999 when we were battling for the championship. We had the front row, we touched at the first corner, and I went on to win the race. Mika wouldn’t speak to me on the podium and afterwards his engineer Mark Slade said to me and my engineer Paul Monaghan, ‘Well, if we lose the championship it’s your fault.’

There are teams within teams and drivers are selfish. That can be disruptive and it was up to Ron Dennis to manage it. He’d sit us down away from the track, make it clear we were part of a team, and he expected us to race in the best interests of the team. Hey, we were pussycats compared to people like Prost, Senna and Lauda.

It got to the point where Mika and I would go to Nice airport, get on two separate planes, arrive wherever and get into two separate cars to the track. It was complete madness. On the drivers’ parade before the race we’d stand on the truck and not speak a word to each other. So yeah, it got very intense.

Team orders became a problem at Jerez [European Grand Prix] in ’97 when Ron agreed, if necessary, to help Williams get the title for Villeneuve, although it was never admitted. But as we know, Jacques and Michael [Schumacher] collided, the Williams was damaged, and on the last lap Mika and I both passed him. I’d already been asked to let Mika pass, which was never discussed, so I declined that invitation for a few laps. They told me I was compromising my place in the team –I took that to mean I’d be fired – so I moved over. That gave Mika his first victory, and Jacques won the title in third behind us. I was not happy.

Then, in Australia in ’98, Mika and I had the front row but the car was still a bit fragile. Ron said not to push each other, whoever gets to the first corner first stays there, and that was Mika. We lapped everyone up to third but then Mika made a pitstop – he’d been told to cool the brakes but he misheard the call and thought they’d told him to pit. So I was leading by quite a distance when the team told me to slow down and let Mika pass. So that was two victories that slipped away, when team orders weren’t legal and the fans didn’t understand what was going on.

Mika was fair, not a dirty racer, and a pretty uncomplicated guy. I admired the way he went about his racing.”