How Häkkinen outqualified Senna on his F1 debut at 'the absolute limit'

F1
- Last updated: April 10th 2024

Mika Häkkinen was simply McLaren's test driver for most of 1993 but, when thrown into the deep end, he caused one of F1's great upsets by out-qualifying his legendary team-mate

Mika Hakkinen McLaren 1993 Portuguese GP

Häkkinen lit up F1 on his debut

Paul-Henri Cahier / Getty Images

As grand prix debuts go, it doesn’t get much more daunting.

Jumping into the hot seat to replace an American racing hero, at one of the world championship’s top teams – oh, and your team-mate is widely regarded as the greatest F1 driver of all-time.

It would sound terrifying to many, but that’s exactly what presented itself to Mika Häkkinen at his very first F1 race, as he replaced Michael Andretti at McLaren to partner Ayrton Senna for the 1993 Portuguese GP.

As history now records though, the ‘Flying Finn’ stunned the F1 world by completely ripping up the formbook, qualifying third behind the dominant Williams FW15Cs of Alain Prost and Damon Hill, leaving a disbelieving Senna behind in fourth.

Mika Häkkinen in McLaren

Best of the rest? No problem…

Grand Prix Photo

In this month’s magazine, Häkkinen remembers the race, his 1993 season and the cult classic McLaren MP4/8, describing his “great motivation” on what would be a memorable GP bow.

That year had been one of serious ups and downs for the Woking team. After losing Honda as an engine supplier, Ayrton Senna then threatened not to race for McLaren after being vetoed from Williams by arch-rival Alain Prost.

However the McLaren MP4/8 – powered by customer Ford units – proved to be a nimble, handy F1 car, particularly in the hands of Senna, who had been persuaded to race on a $1m per race basis.

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The Brazilian summoned some of his greatest career drives using the car, and in fact led the championship from Prost at the 1/3 distance, before the Frenchman used the technologically superior FW15C to overhaul Senna.

All the while though, the Brazilian’s IndyCar star team-mate Michael Andretti struggled, unable to get to grips with grand prix machinery. He was eventually let go after that year’s Italian GP.

Häkkinen was waiting in the wings – and had spent all year preparing. Typically, the Finn is ice-cool in his recollection of the weekend.

“No pressure, just doing my job,” he tells Adam Cooper. “I knew the car 100%, so was able to put it on the absolute limit.”

He expanded on the experience earlier last year to Motor Sport – and the consternation it caused.

Ayrton Senna Mika Hakkinen McLaren 1993 Portuguese GP

Senna didn’t appreciate his young upstart team-mate’s qualifying explainer

DPPI

“I never believed anyone could go quicker,” he said. “I was just so quick in that car. Ayrton understood there were other fast drivers out there but when I came in and kicked his arse on my first race weekend he wanted to understand what I was doing.

“As a three-times world champion he was very mature, very confident, so he asked me, ‘Mika, what did you do?’ And I said, ‘Ayrton, it’s balls,’ and he went berserk, got really upset with me.

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“I was shocked, tried to explain to him that it was a joke, and that of course I respected him for everything that he had achieved but also that we needed some humour.”

Come the race, Häkkinen would eventually crash out while chasing down Ferrari’s Jean Alesi, but he’d already done enough: a new F1 star was born. The Finn would go on to score his first podium at the very next race in Japan.

However, the MP4/8 wasn’t without its foibles – as well as being underpowered, Häkkinen also says the McLaren was lacking in the downforce department.

“There’s certainly a lot of passion and history around that car,” he says. “It wasn’t complicated, it was just something was wrong. I think the aerodynamics that we were using didn’t give us the ultimate performance. And of course at the same time with the power that was available we couldn’t run as much wing as we wanted to have, so the car again had some issues.

“No question about it, it was a great car to drive. But at the same time when I put that car on the limit in high-speed corners or low-speed corners or medium corners or whatever, the car had some serious handling problems.

Häkkinen McLaren drive, at the 1993 Portuguese GP

Young Finn gets ready for his first F1 start

Paul-Henri Cahier / Getty Images

“OK, you had traction control, active suspension, sometimes we were able to use a fully automatic gearbox, but it had quite a few issues.

“We did develop the car non-stop in a very positive way, but we never managed to get the car to a level where I wanted it to be.”

Despite some brilliant performances in the MP4/8, Senna would sign for Williams in 1994, leaving Häkkinen to become a very young McLaren team leader, eventually leading it to a hat-trick of world titles. It all started at Estoril ’93.

Read the fascinating full story of the McLaren MP4/8 in the May 2024 edition – click here to view.

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