My Mika...sigh...

This is from a profile on the official F1 website- it explains some of my complex feelings for Mika Hakkinen. Why I love him so, and it doesn't explain why he never answers my letters... (I don't really send him letters- just trying to make you a little nervous.)

He never said much, preferring to let his driving speak for itself. And it spoke volumes for the laid-back Flying Finn who always drove flat out. Everybody liked the silent star and nobody begrudged the success of the brave man who was nearly killed before he achieved it. Consistent as well as quick, he scored points in over half his races, taking his lop-sided grin to the top of the podium on 20 occasions. In their 11 years as rivals the only driver who achieved more was Michael Schumacher, who said the opponent he most respected was Mika Hakkinen.

Five years after Mika Pauli Hakkinen was born, on September 28, 1968, his parents hired a go-kart for him to try at a track near their home outside Helsinki. On the very first lap little Mika had a big accident, though fortunately without injury to himself. Yet his first racing memory was not of his own fear but the look of it on his father's face. Unphased by his shaky start, Mika pestered his parents - Harri (a short wave radio operator and part time taxi driver) and Aila (a secretary) - until they bought him a kart of his own. As Mika became an increasingly quick karter the whole family - including his sister Nina - went racing for fun, forming their own little team and driving to races in a minibus. Though Mika preferred action to studying (briefly combining both by training as an acrobat at a circus school), he finished elementary school and enrolled in a metal working course. This was soon abandoned in favour of pursuing a career in a more obvious metier: by 1986 he was a five-time karting champion and had become a protege of fellow Finn, Keke Rosberg, the 1982 World Champion. They met, appropriately, in a sauna and Rosberg became his manager, arranging sponsorship that helped propel Mika "flat out" (a favourite expression of both Finns) through the junior categories of single-seater racing.

And in other F1 news- a WOMAN driver was debuting this weekend! Bout damned time! Go Ovaries!!!