A racing enthusiast, Mika started karting from a tender age of 6. He won the Finnish National Karting championship 5 times before entering professional racing. He then went on to win the Nordic title in 1987 in a Formula Ford Reynard. In 1988, he entered and won the GM Euroseries for Dragon Racing, then entered British Formula Three, ending up 6th overall. This was about the same time that Michael Schumacher started his dominance in the racing world. Known to a very few, Hakkinen and Schumacher's rivalry dates way back to 1990. In the prestigious final race in Macau, in 1990, Mika and Michael were competing against each other. Mika led the race for most of the time till the very final lap, but unfortunately crashed with little distance to go. This gave Michael Schumacher his first major victory in his racing carrer.
Hakkinen got his major break in 1993, when his manager, Keke Rosberg got him signed for Mclaren. But he was pushed back to status of test driver when world champion Ayrton Senna decided to drive for Mclaren. He first drove a Grand Prix for Mclaren in 1993 itself, with 3 races to go as a replacement for Michael Andretti, who drove the season with Aryton Senna. Much surprisingly, Mika outqualified Senna in this very race!! But the wins were hard to come by for Mika. He secured his first win after 4 long years at Jerez with the infamous collision between Jacques Villenueve and Michael Schumacher which led to cancellation of all of Schumacher's championship points of the season. That seemed to break the jinx for Mika. The very next year, Mika showed strong determination and skill and won the world championship in 1998 by securing 100 points. He went on to win his second world championship in the consecutive year with 79 points. In 2000, Mika came very close to winning it again, but a poor start to the season and the engine blow-up in the crucial race at Indianapolis saw him take second to Michael Schumacher.
