The battle between Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher was one of F1’s greatest and most cut-throat, as the pair pushed each other to the limit.
Hakkinen’s calm personality, coupled with his precise driving style, made him a perfect match against Schumacher, who was trying to win his first World Championship with Ferrari.
Ferrari had not seen much success throughout the 90s with only two wins between 1990 and 1995, before Schumacher came in along with the dream team of Jean Todt and Ross Brawn.
It took a while for everything to click for Schumacher and Ferrari, but when it did in 2000, it would become the start of one of the most dominant runs ever seen.
At the 13th round of the season at Spa Francorchamps, Schumacher and Hakkinen would produce an epic duel, but the Finn would emerge from the car furious after the Ferrari’s blocking tactics after the race.
Michael Schumacher takes advantage of Mika Hakkinen mistake at start of 2000 Belgian Grand Prix
As is often the case at Spa, rain had hit the circuit in the moments before the race and forced everyone to start on wet tyres with it also being a single-file rolling start to avoid another 1998-style pileup between the cars.
Hakkinen had spun in the early stages of the race after he touched the kerbs at Stavelot, which handed the lead to Schumacher, who managed to work his way up to fourth place.
Schumacher would go on to extend his lead to eleven and a half seconds from Hakkinen, but the Finn would bide his time on the drying track. As everyone switched to slicks, Schumacher went for Bridgestone’s soft compound tyres.
Despite offering him grip in the early stages, they would overheat on the high-speed circuit and it forced Schumacher to go off the racing line to cool down his tyres. From there, Hakkinen began to reel him in.
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Mika Hakkinen furious with Michael Schumacher after 2000 Belgian Grand Prix
Hakkinen caught up to the back of Schumacher on Lap 40 and attempted to pass him at Les Combes after using the slipstream. Schumacher would go on to block him with a late manoeuvre at high speed, causing a bit of contact and slight damage to Hakkinen’s front wing.
It was on-the-edge stuff, and on the next lap, Hakkinen would pull off an outrageous three-wide overtake. Using the better run he got coming out of Eau Rouge, Hakkinen would get close to Schumacher as they got close to lapping Ricardo Zonta.
Darting to the left, Schumacher avoided Zonta while Hakkinen took to the right and kept his foot planted on the damp patch, with the McLaren driver taking the lead at Les Combes at 204mph.
“Michael was definitely on edge. His approach to winning was fearless. He was not thinking about whether I could get hurt if he could get hurt,” said Hakkinen in the documentary, Schumacher.
Hakkinen held onto the lead and won the race, his 18th win in F1, but made his thoughts immediately known to Schumacher in Parc Ferme.
“I did go to speak to Michael and said: ‘You, you know man, you cannot do this! You cannot do this at such a high speed when we go 300kph and I come so much quicker. You cannot block me.’ He was just lifting his shoulders basically and said: ‘Mika, this is racing’.”
The pair would duke it out for the rest of the season, but it was Schumacher who came out on top by 18 points after winning the final four races of the year.
It would be the first of five titles for Schumacher at Ferrari, while Hakkinen would have one more season in F1 before going on a sabbatical and eventually retiring altogether after 2001.