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Formula 1’s 2000 season had shaped into a duel between double champions Mika Häkkinen and Michael Schumacher, with Round 13 of 17 taking the pair to the Ardennes Forest for 44 laps of the lengthy circuit. Mika had won only three races to Schumacher’s five, but greater consistency after a tricky start to the campaign, allied with a string of difficult results for Schumacher, meant Mika arrived in Spa for the Belgian Grand Prix leading the standings for the first time all season – though the gap between them was a slender two points.  

“In 2000, the car was like a bullet,” Mika reflects. “It was so quick, it was an incredible car – of course, after being World Champion in 1998 and 1999, we were flat out again in 2000, and every time the car became more and more on a knife edge. It was like walking on a rope – but the rope is getting narrower and narrower [as the car develops]."

Mika controlled Saturday’s Qualifying session, posting a time three-quarters of a second faster than Jarno Trulli, with Schumacher fourth.

“We absolutely dominated Qualifying,” Mika says. “The car was just flying, it was amazing. Going through Eau Rouge, you are flat out, and again, when you’re on the knife-edge, you can feel the back end going – because you know that corner is very difficult.”

Rain before the race on Sunday dampened the circuit and the decision was made to start behind the Safety Car. Mika retained the lead through the rolling start while Schumacher swiftly worked his way up to second. Schumacher switched to slick tyres on Lap 6, with Mika following suit a lap later, keeping hold of his position. Schumacher began to take time out of Mika’s advantage and on Lap 13 the reigning champion made a critical error through the right-hander of Stavelot.

“The track was awful, half wet, half dry, so only the racing line was dry,” Mika explains. “But of course, every lap it was better and better and better. What it means is that you have to react to the conditions, so every lap you had to drive a little bit faster otherwise the competitors would catch you.

“You had to go more and more on the kerb, and at that time particularly the kerbs were very slippery if they were wet. I came to that particular corner, and I touched a bit too much on the kerb. And it was a bit too wet and I lost the back end and I spun, sliding sideways, and went very close to the barriers. Luckily I didn't hit them and the engine was running. But I don't want to use the words that I was using when that spin happened!

“When I was there facing one direction I could see Michael, and could nearly see through the visor the smile on the face! So of course I put it in first gear, and got back on the track.”

Mika recouped though had relinquished around 10 seconds to his rival, who now held track position, a situation that was preserved through the second round of pit stops. But Mika was undeterred.

“I knew I was quick, and he was quick,” Mika says. “So I thought ‘this is going to be a game, this is going to be a marathon’, where I knew that if I now drive in a clever way, and the team does the right tactics, by the end of the race I will catch him. And that's what happened.

“Seven laps before the end I was very close to him. I thought that it was going to be easy, because we had two different set-ups, Michael had higher downforce on his car and I had lower downforce. So on that twisty part of the circuit he was pulling away, I had no chance to overtake, and the only place to overtake him was after Eau Rouge, on the Kemmel Straight. I thought, this is going to be easy-peasy, because my car was 20km/h quicker than his.”

However, Schumacher was naturally not about to make the task straightforward. On Lap 40 Mika had a run, but Schumacher defended firmly on the run to Les Combes, keeping his car ahead while forcing Mika to take evasive action.

“He was closing the door in a big way, not just gently,” Mika says. “At one point, my front end plate hit his rear tyre, he even left marks on the end plate, and was pushing me off the track, and we are at 310km/h. I was like, ‘oh, this is going to be a difficult one.’

“Why? Because there were not so many laps to go, and I had only one place to overtake him, and he knew that. So every time when I tried and he closed the door, I had to wait, all the way through that long track, until we can reach the Eau Rouge and go on that long straight. And I thought, this is not going to end up nice – I will have to take mega risks to overtake him.”

Mika remained close to the rear of Schumacher’s car as they exited the La Source hairpin on Lap 41, and they were both bearing down on the BAR-Honda of Ricardo Zonta, who was about to go a lap down. It was the presence of Zonta’s car that provided Mika with his golden opportunity.

“He was driving in the middle of the track, and I said, ‘I know this going to be my chance.’

“There were two problems. One problem was because of catching Michael. If I catch Michael before he makes the move for Zonta, he will know where I'm going to go, and he will close the door again, and I have to back off the throttle. So the timing was really important. That way when Michael decides to overtake Zonta, I can just flat out choose the other side of the track.”

 

Spa-Francorchamps. 2000. @F1MikaHakkinen. Michael Schumacher.

Overtakes don't get much more incredible than this! 🤩

Where does it rank in your list of all-time overtakes?#F1 #BelgianGP pic.twitter.com/j3Uni5YLKI

— Formula 1 (@F1) August 20, 2018

With Zonta in the middle of the circuit, Schumacher jinked left, and Mika plumped for the right, but had to be wary of not compromising his approach for the right-hander of Les Combes.

“Then comes the second problem… when I overtook Zonta from the inside, the track goes to the right, so that's why Michael chose to overtake on the left, not on the right. That's why you can see quite an aggressive move from my side, close to him, that way I could try, and then I went for the braking point, and it worked, I overtook him! But I didn’t let the emotions get too high – I thought ‘come on, focus now’, because Michael was very fast in the middle sector.

“I had to focus to keep the car on track, and look in the mirror, but also I didn’t have to take too many risks because I knew when we got to the long straights it was over, he’s not going to get me there.”

Mika reeled off the remaining three-and-a-half laps to claim victory, with Schumacher magnanimous in defeat, though in the immediate post-race aftermath the pair were captured in close conversation, as Mika expressed his displeasure at the incident preceding the pass.

“It was his character of racing,” Mika says. “It was too much. In the slow-speed corners, you can play games, you can slow down so that the car cannot accelerate nicely, and you can do all kinds of little tricks that you have learned over the years. But when you are at 310km/h, you don't push someone off.

“I had a long chat with him, and really explained to him that he cannot do this, it's dangerous, I can hurt myself and you can hurt yourself. He was just really very confident looking at me. He said: ‘It's racing. It's just racing.’

“I didn't see that. It's not fair. It doesn't mean you have to be a gentlemen out there but you need to have a certain respect for the race. But still I admire his commitment for motor racing, and what he did.”

A quarter of a century has now passed since the titanic tussle between Mika and Schumacher, but it remains the emblematic snapshot of one of Formula 1’s greatest rivalries.

“Where I rank that one, it has to be number one,” Mika says, smiling. “It was just beautiful.”