A Ride With Mika Hakkinen
As a motor sport fan, I might say I’ve been there, done that; but there’s one thing I’ve never done, and that is to drive an F1 car. My own son Ian is more lucky than I am, having driven with Fernando Alonso in a two-seater Renault, and more interestingly, drove one all by himself at the Paul Ricard Circuit in France.
As the years slip away, it looks like it will be a dream, so when I was invited to meet Mika Hakkinen, with the tantalizing offer of a taxi ride with him in a McLaren supercar, I figured that this would be possibly my only opportunity, so it was with great anticipation that I accepted the invitation by Johnnie Walker to meet up with the two-time F1 world champion.
The event was the Johnnie Walker Join The Pact to Never Drink And Drive campaign, with Mika as the Global Responsible Drinking Ambassador. The car was a Join The Pact Supercar, essentially a very fast one-plus-one supercar built on a modified F1 McLaren Mercedes chassis by the McLaren F1 team. The Join The Pact campaign is aimed at getting people from all over the world to make a solemn promise to never drink and drive ever again. Drinkers attending parties where there is alcohol served are advised to go in groups, with a nominated driver who will abstain from alcohol consumption so that he or she can ferry the rest of the team home after a night out.
The idea of using an F1 world champion as the ambassador serves to drive home the message of being in control all of the time. At a personal interview with Mika Hakkinen, I asked him how he got involved. He replied that three years ago, he was approached by Johnnie Walker regarding this campaign, and he was shown some pictures of accidents directly related to drunk driving, and this shocked him. According to a spokesman from Johnnie Walker, 30 percent of all accidents are caused by drunk driving. “I do racing at high speeds, and I know what it takes to be in control,” he said. “When you are not in control, you are just a passenger in a machine careening towards disaster,” he added. When asked about what the feeling was like, Mika went on to describe an incident in which his Formula 1 car steering came off completely at 300 kilometres per hour. “It was not a great feeling knowing that you are just a passenger in a car, not knowing where you will end up.”
As part of the Join The Pact campaign, Mika Hakkinen gives taxi rides in the Supercar, to demonstrate just how important control is. In an F1 car, everything happens very fast, and one hundred percent alertness is essential.
The cockpit of the Supercar is slightly wider than that of a regular F1 car, with the driver seated slightly to the right hand side of centre, and the passenger crammed slightly behind the driver, on the left hand side. It really is a tight squeeze, with the passenger having to get into the Supercar first, and strap down before the driver gets in. The driver’s left shoulder and left torso actually covers part of the passenger’s body, so when I was in the car with Mika Hakkinen as the driver, it was as close and personal as one could be.
The taxi ride with Hakkinen was an experience in itself. All the passengers had to suit up in fire-proof overalls, and wear a helmet. Getting into the car was quite difficult; There are no car doors, so you have to be tall enough to step over the side of the Supercar. Mika’s team helpers told me to put one foot over the side, and step onto the seat. Then you have to stand on the seat, and lower yourself into the seat, sliding your feet forward at the same time. You literally sink into the seat, ending in an almost lying down position, and once you are comfortable, the helpers will strap you in with a four point safety harness. Then, Mika gets on board, and sits almost on top of you, as his seat is a little higher than yours, and starts where yours ends. Strapped together in the car, you and Mika are like Siamese twins, joined at the torso. Luckily for the both of us, none of us had BO!
Once the all clear is given, Mika fires up the engine, and eases the Supercar out of the racing pit and onto the Sepang Circuit. Then all hell breaks loose as he accelerates towards Turn One. It is about 400 metres to the corner, but he is already in 5th gear by the time we reach the turn. The race engineer had told me earlier that the Supercar was geared very short for acceleration; the G-forces from the massive rate of acceleration pushed me back into the seat, and before we even reached the bend, we must have been hitting around 200 km/h. I am only guessing on the speed, but I remember I had to keep my mouth shut, or else the wind would have pushed my jaw out of its socket. My full face helmet started moving upwards from the force of the wind, threatening to tear itself off my head; I quickly learned to put my head down a little so that the air rushing over the helmet would help to keep it down.
Mika shifts down a few gears to take Turn One, a tight right hander, using the paddle shifters on the steering; the steering is small, about the same size as my PlayStation steering wheel, and takes the corner easily. Turn One is followed immediately by Turn Two, which is another tight turn in the opposite direction, and this time, the tail steps out just a little. Mika does the correction instantaneously, but you can actually feel the wiggle of the tail as he accelerates out to take Turn Three which is a sweeping right hander, going downhill.
We go through the gearbox, shifting up a gear every one second or so, the engine screaming at something like 18,000 rpm each time, and Turn Four, a square right uphill turn comes up very fast. Mika slams on the brakes, and you can feel your body straining to fly out of the front of the car. They didn’t strap me down very well, and my body moved about an inch forward, pushing hard against the harness straps; anyway, Mika’s left shoulder was there to stop me from moving further forward. Turn four came and went, and it was up through the gearbox again, up the hill towards Turn Five, which is a long but tight right hander with the road camber going the wrong way.
With special tyres providing superb grip, the Supercar takes it very fast, faster than I have taken the turn in any other car, and the wrong camber of the track makes you feel like you are about to fly right out of the cockpit; thank goodness for racing harnesses. Turn Six is a long right hander, and then Mika has to stand on the brakes to make the double right hand turn back to join the Pit straight again as we are on the short track.
As he goes through the gearbox again, I take the opportunity to pull on the harness to tighten it some more. We hit the top speed of 360 km/h, and because the gearing is shorter than usual, Mika has to ease off on the throttle so that the maximum revs of the engine are not exceeded. We go through the circuit foe a second lap before coming into the pits.
The ride was one of the biggest moments of my life, much more exciting than my first roller coaster ride. The difference between the roller coaster ride and the ride with Mika Hakkinen is that I was not even at all nervous; on my first roller coaster ride, I was actually terrified, because I wasn’t in control, and I did swear at that time I preferred a rally car to a roller coaster. With Mika, I had the comforting thought of him a double world champion, and his driving style was cool and calm although we were going so fast.
All too soon, the ride was over. We couldn’t talk, so the best I could do was tap him on the shoulder on the cooling down lap, just as we were turning into pit lane, and when he turned around, I gave him a thumbs up sign, and said, “You are great!” He graciously acknowledged me, and we parted on a strong handshake. After that, we arrived at the pits, and it was a flurry of activity as I was helped out of the car, with Mika remaining in his seat while the next passenger was squeezed into the passenger seat.
After that, there was not much else left to do, and so I left, with the fond memory etched forever in my memory banks. If you ask me whether I would do it again, the answer is a definite YES. And I have joined the pact never to drink and drive too!
