“PUSH!”
Success in Formula 1™ comes from pushing hard,
even when the car is 20 seconds ahead of our rivals...
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It’s not unusual for a team to hold out a pit board with a message to their driver. But when a McLaren Mercedes engineer sticks out a board displaying the word “Push” on lap 18 of the 1999 Hungarian Grand Prix, a few eyebrows are raised.
After all, the man they are asking to go faster – reigning world champion Mika Hakkinen – is already 20 seconds ahead of his nearest rival and is the fastest car on the circuit by a country mile.
The team and its technology partners, however, are always looking to get the maximum performance from every race. And this is a crunch race, with McLaren Mercedes determined to reassert itself against title rivals Ferrari.
Hakkinen has lost a few tenths while overtaking some backmarkers, and the team strategists want to him to keep his foot down so that he can open up a sufficient gap to keep the chasing Eddie Irvine behind him, whatever strategy the Ferrari man tries.
“There’s no rest with my team,” Hakkinen grins after winning the race by almost 10 seconds and closing the gap on championship leader Irvine. Two months later, he is crowned world champion for the second time.
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