By Max Drinkwater
The 1990s saw a raft of F1’s greatest ever rivalries take centre stage on track. The likes of Senna, Prost, Mansell and Villeneuve all took to battle for world championship glory, but one rivalry that really took the F1 world by storm during the 90s was that of Germany’s Michael Schumacher and the Finnish Mika Hakkinen who didn’t just go to battle they went to all out war towards the close of the century. In this article we will be taking a look at what made both drivers so great, how their title fights went down and whether or not this rivalry should’ve lasted for even longer than it did.
The Red Baron vs The Flying Finn…
Both drivers entered the Formula 1 paddock during the 1991 season with Lotus being Hakkinen’s first drive and Schumacher with the Jordan outfit. The pair would spend their early years in different fortunes with Hakkinen spending the majority of the early 90s in and around the midfield and never quite having the machinery to fight at the front whereas Schumacher was thrust into the front runners of the sport winning his first two world titles in 1994 and 1995 just four seasons after his debut. So when the pair finally met in a title fight in the 1998 season Schumi was already a two time world champion where as Hakkinen was really entering his first ever fight for the title after his best year in 97’ which included his first grand prix win at the European Grand Prix at Jerez so many questioned whether Hakkinen and his McLaren team which had up until now been just shy of a title winning car could step up and take on Schumacher and his formidable Ferrari team.
1998: First Blood drawnComing into the season and McLaren were confident to say the least their driver lineup of Hakkinen and David Coulthard was a pairing certainly capable of being at the front of the pack but McLaren also had their own trump card. In 1997 McLaren made a move for a certain Adrien Newey from Williams who at this point in his career had seven world titles with four drivers and three constructors championships with Williams most notably his 1996 win with Williams and Damon Hill who fought off Schumacher and his Ferrari. But how did this play out on track? Well at the opening two rounds consecutive 1-2 finishes for McLaren and two wins for Hakkinen indicated that they had come into the season as a force to be reckoned with. Schumacher fired back in Argentina with his first win of the year before three wins on the bounce for McLaren, two for Hakkinen and one for Coulthard saw the Finn hold all the cards in the fight for the title.
The second half of the 1998 season did see a comeback fight from Schumacher who was doing everything he could to offset the superior McLaren package but it wasn’t enough when Suzuka rolled round for the final round of the season a retirement for Schumacher saw the Flying Finn take his first drivers title and take the first bragging rights of this rivalry.
1999: What could have happened?The 1999 season was hyped to be a huge year for Formula 1. Michael Schumacher wasn’t known for his ruthless mentality, he was famous for it. Schumacher was the epitome of doing everything to win. That’s why many coming into the year touted a big year for the German and his team but no one could count out the formidable and iconic McLaren in its striking livery and world class driver line up the title fight shaped up to be huge and that it was. The opening of the season was much like the boxing match of the 98’ season, each team trading blows each round and Ferrari seemingly having caught up to McLaren in terms of performance were giving their driver a tool to lay down a challenge with. That was until the British grand prix at Silverstone were tragedy struck for Ferrari and Schumacher.
At lights out both Jaques Villneuve and Alessandro Zanardi stalled on the grid resulting in an accidentally thrown red flag. Schumacher, who had lost out on positions at the start raced forward at full throttle and coming into Stowe corner the brakes on Schumi’s ferrari failed and the German flew into the barriers at over 300 km/h suffering a broken leg which ruled him out until the final two rounds of the season giving Hakkinen a clear ride to the title with just his teammate to contend with.
2000 & 2001: Schumi’s back but what nowThe 2000 season saw the Red Baron claim his bragging rights back in the legendary F1-2000 his first world title for the Scuderia with Hakkinen finishing second 19-points off top spot. In 2001 it was the start of the Ferrari and Schumacher Dynasty with another title heading to Maranello and Schumacher but 2001 also saw the end of this great rivalry. Mika Hakkinen announced that he would be taking a sabbatical for the 2002 season to spend more time with his family and just 9 months into that sabbatical the Finn announced his retirement from F1 at the age of 33-years old. Many had the same question to ask. What would’ve happened if Hakkinen didn’t retire and took the fight to Schumacher during the early 2000s and what more could he have achieved. This is something that will forever be one of F1’s greatest what ifs, but there is no doubt on how legendary this rivalry was.
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