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And Colossally That's History! S3 E9: Mika Hakkinen - F1's 'luckiest' champion?
🕑 Added 2025-05-30 12:46:39 +0000 UTCOn this week's episode of And Colossally That's History! Richard Williams and Matt Bishop look back on the career of Mika Hakkinen, and in particular how he was able to overcome - thanks to a considerable slice of good luck - the devastating crash in 1995 that so nearly took his life to become a double Formula 1 world champion.
Along the way, Matt and Richard explain what made Hakkinen - widely regarded as one of the quickest drivers of his generation, and a man who often went toe-to-toe with and beat Michael Schumacher in the late 1990s and early 2000s - such a special talent.
They also look back on the dreadful crash in Adelaide in 1995 that would ordinarily have ended Hakkinen's career, if not his life, describing the incredible work done by the medical team on-site, and the remarkable bravery and tenacity show by Hakkinen in the aftermath.
Matt also shares some great anecdotes about the time he spent with Hakkinen in his glory days, post-accident, when Matt was writing about the Finn as a magazine editor. He discusses what Mika told him after that legendary overtake on Schumacher at Spa in 2000, and he describes - in hilarious detail - what happened when Mika took him rally driving on a frozen lake the morning after a heavy night drinking vodka...
Comments
Chris Parrott
Not relevant to this episode but for the end of series questions episode I’d love to hear both your takes on the following: Between 1958-2002 no F1 driver won the Drivers Championship 3 seasons in a row. Why was it so difficult to repeat success in F1 for so long and what has changed in F1’s modern era to make it commonplace?
Chris Parrott
Thanks again for a great episode. Do you think Mika’s accident played a part in his thinking when he decided to retire ‘early’ at the end of 2001?
