Former double world champion explains why his old team-mate is still pressing on in the top flight - at the age of 37...
Mika Hakkinen has suggested that the reason his old team-mate David Coulthard is still going in Formula 1 is because he remains fired-up by the desire to clinch the ultimate prize - the World Drivers' Championship trophy.
The Scot is now in his 15th season in the top flight, having made his grand prix debut with Williams all the way back in the 1994 Spanish Grand Prix, in place of the tragically-killed Ayrton Senna. He has since notched up no fewer than 13 victories, 61 podium finishes, 12 pole positions, 18 fastest laps and 527 points - making him the most successful British driver in terms of points in the sport's history and the fourth-most successful outright, behind only multiple champions Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna.
Missing from his career CV, however, is the accolade he craves the most, even as F1's oldest participant now at the age of 37 - the world championship laurels. Coulthard has five times finished inside the top three in the title chase.
"I'm surprised some drivers, like DC, can hang on for so long in Formula 1," 1998 and 1999 world champion Hakkinen - who partnered the now Red Bull Racing ace at McLaren-Mercedes for six years from 1996 to 2001 - told the Montreal Gazette. "On the other hand, I understand why, because if I had never won the championship I probably would still be there.
"The story's different for a lot of drivers, but for some, if you haven't reached your goal, you just keep going and going and going."
The Finn walked away from the grand prix paddock at the age of just 33 at the end of the 2001 campaign. He insisted for him the decision had been a relatively straightforward one to make - not that he had been entirely devoid of second thoughts, he admitted…
"When I left Formula 1 it was not easy," the 39-year-old recounted, "but it was a time when I didn't have the choice. I had to stop. I didn't have the motivation to continue at that level; I wouldn't have got the results I wanted to have.
"After a couple of years, I thought about coming back. I started getting interested again. I had had time off, I was relaxed [and] I had time to get back into shape mentally and physically, but once you take the decision to leave F1, I don't think you should ever come back - unless, of course, it depends on what you have in your records.
"I had a couple of world championships, so if I had gone back to F1 there was nothing else for me to prove except to win. I could not have settled to come second, third or sixth. The only thing in Formula 1 is winning, and there was no guarantee for me [that] I could have had a winning car or the other elements that would have influenced winning. The risk was too high to try to go back to Formula 1."
Instead, the man from Helsinki broke his sabbatical with a number of merely speculative F1 tests and by returning to action in the DTM touring car championship, triumphing three times for Mercedes-Benz in the pan-European tin-top series from 2005 to 2007, before electing to hang up his racing helmet for good last November.
Speaking in Canada in his role as a global, responsible-drinking ambassador for McLaren sponsor Johnnie Walker, Hakkinen responded enthusiastically to remarks from seven-time title-winner and long-time rival Schumacher that he had been the competitor the German most feared and respected during their time together in the uppermost echelon.
"It's a pleasure to hear from him that he felt that way," he replied. "Michael is a great champion - to win the championship many times is not easy. He had some tough races and we had some hard races between us where he won and where I won.
"They were wheel-to-wheel often - no collisions, but close. We had some of the toughest races ever between two drivers. What he said about me shows the respect [he had] for me. I have the same respect for him."
