Ayrton Senna didn’t speak to Mika Hakkinen ‘for weeks’ at McLaren after a joke that went wrong

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Mika Hakkinen spent only three races as Ayrton Senna’s teammate at McLaren in 1993, and their partnership was tense, to say the least.

By the 1993 F1 season, Senna was a three-time champion with McLaren, having fought intense title battles with his arch-rival Alain Prost. Their conflict as teammates with the Woking outfit led the former to join Ferrari – Prost blocked Senna from joining Ferrari back in 1991.

That same year, Hakkinen made his debut in F1 with Lotus. He scored just 13 points with the team across two seasons before signing as a reserve driver for McLaren in 1993, helping to develop the car.

Senna won five races that season, while teammate Michael Andretti only scored points three times, including a podium at Monza. That race would be his last for McLaren as he was let go before the final three events.

Hakkinen was drafted in to replace Andretti in Estoril, Suzuka and Adelaide. On his debut, he crashed out of the race, but he made a huge impression on the team as he outqualified Senna by just under half a tenth of a second.

Ayrton Senna did not speak to Mika Hakkinen ‘for weeks’ after taunting him on his McLaren debut

Senna was left baffled by how Hakkinen had found the time to beat him, but the Finn was not willing to give away his secrets. Instead, as he recalled on the High Performance podcast, he simply told the Brazilian he ‘had the b—-‘.

When asked how Senna received the joke, Hakkinen explained: “Not very well. The time difference of Ayrton Senna in qualification was only maybe half a tenth of a second. So absolutely hardly anything

“And I knew the difference is coming in the very first turn in the Estoril track in Portugal. Yeah, it’s a very fast, extremely fast right-hand corner where you enter the corner and you touch the brake pedal just a tiny bit, come down the gear and just foot down again, super fast.

“But I was using left foot braking and Ayrton was using right foot braking, so when he has to come off the throttle and go on the brake pedal and go back on the throttle, that’s where he lost that half a tenth.

“So he came to ask me of course after the qualifications: ‘Mika, how did you do it?’ And of course, I didn’t tell him. But I said something very naughty for him, little bit joking there, the Finnish sense of humour. He didn’t take it so well, I said I had the balls!

“He got really upset. He said: ‘How many podiums you had and how many world championships and how many race victories?’. I said: ‘Look, it was just a joke’. He didn’t speak to me for a couple of weeks and he was really p—– off.”

READ MORE: All to know about Ayrton Senna including Alain Prost rivalry and Imola crash

Mika Hakkinen had similar trouble with David Coulthard as McLaren teammate

Senna was not the only F1 driver Hakkinen came to blows with on the other side of the McLaren garage. He would spark a tense rivalry with David Coulthard when he joined from Williams in 1996.

Williams were the team to beat in F1 at the time, until McLaren caught up come 1998. Hakkinen used it to win two consecutive titles in 1998 and 1999, while his teammate struggled to adapt.

Hakkinen and Coulthard ‘couldn’t stand’ each other as teammates, as they withheld information from one another and stayed apart in the garage. The latter could not get the better of his more experienced teammate.

Coulthard’s biggest regret was letting Hakkinen ‘manipulate’ him at McLaren. The pair have since reconciled, but it was the Finn who ultimately came out on top in the rivalry.