'It got frosty!' Häkkinen and Coulthard to take F1 rivalry on tour

“The current popularity of F1 has meant there’s a confidence that people would want to come and listen to a couple of ex-racers who’ve crashed into each other a few times, share stories and talk about things that you can’t necessarily do within the constraints of television timings and, let’s say, normal public environments!”

Coulthard acknowledges that the success of Steiner certainly had an influence.

“I bumped into him in an airport, and he was coming from Manchester, where he’d done another one of these nights – he’s really enjoying it!

“And the public seems to really get behind profanity and very straight talking!”

With 30 McLaren grands prix wins, two drivers’ titles for Häkkinen and a constructors’ title in 1998, few team-mate pairings can match the Scot and the Finn for on-track success.

Coulthard says they’ll describe the ups and downs their McLaren tenure, as well as “anything else the audience want to get into.

“Because I think in these sorts of forums with a couple of 1000 people, it’s not as intimate as being three people in a conversation like this, but certainly we’ll have our talking points on the key moments in our journey; either directly as team-mates, before that, and whatever else.

“There may be some people there that are real hardcore fans of the sport, and there may be people that have been bought a couple of tickets, they’re not quite sure who these two guys are, but they like Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen, and would like to know a bit more about them.”

Häkkinen meanwhile says that modern day racing enthusiasts view the sport through a different lens, and want to now re-examine famous old rivalries the same way.

“I think the fans are now different what they used to be in in our time,” he says.

“Before they were interested in the cars: they were fast, they were beautiful.

“Now Drive to Survive has brought a different picture. What about Mika, what about David? How did they communicate? What was their philosophy for a racing life?”

While perhaps not quite being Prost Vs Senna, Coulthard and Häkkinen found themselves at the sharp end in one of F1’s most intense eras, its V10 period.

Trying to wrestle these violent machines round Spa, Silverstone and Monza – with Michael Schumacher and Ferrari for company too – brought a huge amount of pressure, which sometimes spilt over into the McLaren motorhome.

They were central, along with the design impetus of Adrian Newey, to dragging McLaren out of its mid ’90s malaise, but the eagerness to do well could hamper their efforts.

“I think when I touched Mika at the first corner at Spa [in 1999, sending Häkkinen spinning out of the lead] and then I went on to win the race, I think that was quite a frosty moment!” laughs Coulthard.

“I remember on the podium, Mika wasn’t interested in saying too much! But your success is your team-mate’s failure, and vice-versa. We didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but that’s competition.”

Häkkinen and Coulthard’s relationship did cool to a point they would travel from the Nice via private jet, from the same airport, then land in the same location, before travelling separately to attend the same engineering briefing to kick off the grand prix weekend.

It was a long way from whole gangs of drivers sharing planes today, never mind thoughts of polluting the planet.

“Mika is very enthusiastic right now, because we used to do separate private jets, but he doesn’t realise we’ll be sharing a family room together on this more trimmed back trip!” quips Coulthard.

As Häkkinen sums up: “It’s going to be quite a journey. Is the UK weather good in September?”