Stuart Codling is a respected motorsport journalist and broadcaster who covered sports car racing in the United States before joining F1 Racing, the world’s biggest-selling Formula 1 magazine, in 2001. He has appeared as an F1 expert on TV and radio, hosted for Renault F1, and contributes to F1 Racing, Autosport, Autocar, and the Red Bulletin. Codling is the author of several Motorbooks titles, including Formula 1 Drive to Survive The Unofficial Companion, Real Racers: Formula 1 Racing in the 1950s and 1960s, Art of the Formula 1 Race Car, Art of the Classic Sports Car, and The Life Monaco. Stuart lives in Farnham, Surrey, England.
Formula 1’s defining “Flying Finn” of the 1990s, Mika Häkkinen learned his craft on the kart tracks of his native Finland, where his father would mark the braking points of specific corners with a Coca-Cola can…then move it closer to the apex every lap. Having won the Nordic Formula Ford series in 1987 he also claimed the Opel-Lotus Euroseries and prestigious British Formula 3 championship before graduating to F1 with Lotus in 1991. After moving to McLaren in 1993 he grew with the team as it rebuilt from a competitive slump, winning the world championship in 1998 and 1999–and developing a rivalry with Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher which would define the era.