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Schumacher vs Hakkinen: The first coming

The field of the 1990 Macau Grand Prix was a galaxy of future stars. And a couple of hopefuls named Schumacher and Hakkinen had the headline battle

Marcus Simmons Dec 21, 2016, 9:42 AM

Michael Schumacher led Mika Hakkinen past the old pits for the last time, and the Finn, surfing the crest of a wave after winning the British Formula 3 Championship, was tucked right in the slipstream of the German F3 champion. That, thought the West Surrey Racing team that ran Hakkinen, was surely enough to give him Macau Grand Prix victory.

Back then Macau was very different. The start-finish line was after the Reservoir kink - rather than before, as it is today - and the event was run to an aggregate of a two-heat format. Hakkinen had 2.66 seconds in his pocket - the margin by which he'd beaten Schumacher in the first part. All he had to do was sit right behind the WTS Motorsport man. And off they headed into the kink then known as Yacht Club Bend, now Mandarin Oriental...

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Author Marcus Simmons

Marcus Simmons is the Deputy Editor of Autosport magazine. As a child he was a regular on the chalk banks of Thruxton – hence his unhealthy obsession with 1970s Formula 2 and F3 – before he became an MSA timekeeper at the age of 17. At 19, his reporting debut for Motoring News arguably overshadowed Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal as the sporting moment of June 1986, and he joined the staff in 1990 after graduating from his degree course in Plymouth. A parallel Formula First career – which was as incident-packed as his childhood exploits in show-jumping and hunter trials – finished when he wrote off his car and put himself in hospital in 1991.

Marcus moved to Autosport in the summer of 1996. Since then he has had two stints as a freelancer and a brief spell as editor of Motor Sport magazine, during which the revered green cover was revived, before he rejoined Autosport in 2008. He lives in Teddington with his wife (who, gratifyingly, grew up within earshot of Castle Combe), daughter, stepson, dog, cat and guitars, and additionally has an adult daughter and stepson.