In the meantime, in a similar way to with Damon in 1996, I was to be Mika’s de facto race engineer for the year while his new race engineer Mark Slade got up to speed. Mika and I got on well – he was perceptive with his feedback, and I think it gave him confidence that someone, i.e. me, was at last taking the time to try to understand and translate what he was saying with words like ‘floaty’ and ‘can’t feel the steering wheel’, and what those mean in engineering terms. Like so many gifted natural drivers, he would adapt his driving to whatever the car was doing and then report what the car was
...more
