the racing world
An often dogged and sometimes disheartening slog from the ranks of the Formula One has paid off for 1998 world champion Mika Hakkinen. Alan Henry reports
Mika Hakkinen of Finland clinched the 1998 Formula One world championship with a flawless flag-to-flag victory in the Japanese Grand Prix, a success which also gave the McLaren team its first constructors’ title since the late Ayrton Senna secured his third and final crown in this race seven years ago.
For Michael Schumacher and the Ferrari team, their last-ditch efforts to secure a first drivers’ title since 1979 ended in abject disaster.
The rule which states that any driver who causes a restart by making such an elementary error as stalling must go to the back of the grid was introduced to encourage adherence to unyielding television deadlines. In the past it has tended to penalise second-division competitors rather than the stars of the show.
But after Jarno Trulli’s Prost was moved to the back of the grid as punishment for spoiling the first start with such a lapse, Schumacher had to take the same medicine following an identical transgression from pole position.
Schumacher recovered to third place before suffering a catastrophic tyre failure at 265kph on the start/finish straight after running over debris left by a collision between two slower cars.
In an episode frighteningly similar to Nigel Mansell’s escape during the 1986 Australian Grand Prix, Schumacher controlled his wayward three-wheeler and deftly brought it to a halt at the side of the track. For the second successive season his chances of winning the title for Ferrari had been thwarted.
It was an unfortunate and embarrassing note on which to end Goodyear’s 35-year association with motor racing’s most senior category, as the tyre company withdrew from Formula One after last Sunday’s race following a decision taken last year.
Watched approvingly by his mentor, manager and former world champion Keke Rosberg, the only other Finn to have won the Formula One title, back in 1982, the 30-year-old Hakkinen dominated the race with unruffled composure.
“I don’t know how to start explaining my feelings,” he said. “It was easier than some of the races have been this year. I have been in much more difficult situations than at this grand prix, but obviously I was aware this morning of the pressure that was falling on me.
“It was disturbing my performance a little bit, which I would say is quite normal, but then I seemed to calm down quite a lot and it was quite easy to control the situation. But there is always one problem when you are leading easily like that – and it happened to me with about 10 laps to go – which is the tendency for your mind to start thinking about other things. I almost started whistling inside the car .”
For Hakkinen, victory represented just reward for a dogged and sometimes disheartening slog from the ranks of the Formula One also-rans, which he originally joined as a member of the Lotus team in 1991.
Two years later he signed as McLaren’s official test driver rather than race for the French Ligier squad, and eventually gained promotion to the full-time race team after the IndyCar star Michael Andretti failed to master the complexities of Formula One and withdrew from the series before the end of the 1993 season.
His success brought McLaren’s tally of grand prix victories to 116 since the team began Formula One racing in 1966, only three fewer than Ferrari, who have been competing since 1949.
Ferrari had hoped that Eddie Irvine might be able to play a tactical role in this event, where Schumacher had to win without Hakkinen scoring any points from this final race. This was too much of a gamble and, although Irvine made up two places at the start, he simply could not keep pace with the McLaren.
David Coulthard finished third in the other McLaren-Mercedes with Damon Hill’s Jordan- Honda forging a path ahead of Heinz-Harald Frentzen’s Williams FW20 as they braked for the final chicane on the last lap. It was a bold slice of overtaking, but quite unnecessary.
Hill had it fixed in his mind that fourth was absolutely essential to ensure Jordan finished fourth in the constructors’ championship.
In fact, fifth would have been good enough, but Hill had seemingly ignored that instruction and muscled his way past the startled Williams driver.
ENDS
— End —