Mika Häkkinen: The last great Lotus driver

Lotus employed some great names during its remarkable history. Five of its drivers won world championships, while several others went on to lift the crown after completing at least part of their Formula One apprenticeship in Norfolk. The last to do so was Mika Häkkinen, the man largely responsible for a final flourish of hope before the team ground to a halt at the end of 1994, two years after he left.

“I had a really good time there, no question about it,” Häkkinen recalls. “The start was obviously fascinating. I arrived in an F1 team not having seen other grand prix teams before, so it was difficult to make a comparison. I didn’t have a clue, but then again maybe it was good it was like that, because it kept me performing like I was driving in a top team.”

When Häkkinen joined in 1991, he was a key part of a wind of change that swept through the corridors of Ketteringham Hall. The latter days of the Camel era had been hugely disappointing, and Martin Donnelly’s accident at Jerez in September 1990 seemed the final straw.

With the title sponsor and engine partner Lamborghini both gone, the team’s very survival was in doubt. But former Chapman employees Peter Collins and Peter Wright created a new management structure and offered a way forward.

Always on the lookout for young drivers, Collins had been watching and admiring Häkkinen for three years, and was mightily impressed by his charge to the 1990 British Formula Three title. He felt that Mika could leapfrog Formula 3000.

“We concluded the deal with the Chapman family to take over the team,” Collins recalls. “It dragged on to November of 1990. When it looked as though we were getting somewhere, I rang Keke Rosberg and asked him what he was going to do with Mika. He wasn’t sure, and I said, ‘What about F1? I’m going to be running Lotus and I want to put him in the car.’ He said, ‘You’re joking…’

“Mika was very young mentally and he was lazy at that stage. I felt he was not really raising his game enough.”

“I’d looked at some of the old dross that was available and thought I’d rather go with somebody with potential. A lot of people thought I was crazy, but as I said to them at the time, if somebody’s good, and the timing’s right, they can make the step. If I’d got it wrong, the repercussions would be quite big; if I got it right, then he would help us move forward.”

Collins needed some sponsorship, and it didn’t take long for Keke to raise it in Finland. They agreed a two year deal with an option for a third, although a gobsmacked Mika knew nothing about it until the last minute.

Rosberg’s brother-in-law and business associate Didier Coton worked closely with Mika throughout his career. He remembers the launch well: “When Keke announced it in Finland just before Christmas, he had a few people from Lotus fly in with a wind tunnel model. When Mika arrived, Father Christmas opened the box and there was this Lotus. It was a very special moment for Mika — and for Keke, who had been working hard with Peter Collins. Mika was an F3 driver, full of hope, full of energy, just looking at the world of Formula One and saying, ‘I’m going to win in F1 just like I did in F3.’”

Mika’s first test was in an old 101 at Silverstone. After watching him at Club for a handful of laps, Collins knew he had his man. There was little time and not much money, so the existing 102 was modified, with a Judd V8 replacing the Lamborghini. Julian Bailey, who had done a season for Tyrrell back in 1988, was recruited as nominal lead driver.

Mika appeared overconfident, but his first outing at Phoenix gave him every reason to be so. He qualified a stunning 13th, and the pitlane sat up and took note. He was unfazed when his knees twice knocked the steering wheel loose during the race.

The tight street circuit flattered the ‘bitza’ package and it got harder after that. He never again qualified in the top 20, admittedly at a time when there were 34 entries. In France, he actually missed the cut. Mika and Julian managed to finish fifth and sixth at Imola, but they were three laps down, and the team failed to score any more points that year. Bailey lost his drive, which was subsequently shared by Collins protégé Johnny Herbert and, when the Brit was committed to Japanese F3000, journeyman Michael Bartels.

Mika and Johnny got on well. They shared the same youthful sense of humour and occasionally hotel rooms. They motivated each other too, something that became very evident to Collins whenever Bartels was in the other car.

“Mika was very young mentally and he was lazy at that stage. He could drive very quickly, but every time Bartels drove, Mika’s performance against the people we’d normally be racing against dropped away. I felt he was not really raising his game enough – it depended on the amount of pressure from his team-mate: when Johnny was there, he pushed harder. Also, Mika was not working hard enough on his stamina and fitness.”

At Estoril, Collins was incensed when he learned from a journalist that Mika had been taking the first corner with his right hand on the wheel while holding his helmet up with the left. “Maybe I wasn’t fit enough,” says Häkkinen. “But I thought I was bloody fit, I thought I was going flat out. But I suppose when you are driving a Lotus at Estoril it takes twice as long to go round those corners compared to other cars. So it’s much harder!”

It didn’t help matters when Mika crashed his company Esprit into a tree near the factory: “I did say that a tree jumped into the road, that it was nothing to do with me…” A furious team boss impounded the wreck.

Coton: “Peter was not an easy guy with drivers, but his comments were always accurate and very constructive. He was pushing because he knew exactly what Mika’s potential was. Mika needed to understand how the system worked in F1.”

For 1992, the team lined up Ford HB engines. Benetton and Jordan had demonstrated the unit’s potential, and with a new chassis there was cause for optimism. However, Mika and Johnny had to make do with a hack 102D at the start of the season.