Photo: ACI Sport
Ella Hakkinen, the 15-year-old daughter of double Formula 1 World Champion Mika, opted for the relatively low-key surroundings of the Formula 4 Central European Zone championship to gain her first experience in racing single-seaters.
But the choice of F4 CEZ was not driven by some grand strategic plan of the McLaren Driver Development Programme but rather, she says, “mostly a family decision.
“I didn’t really choose it,” she says. “We wanted something to gain experience, because it’s my first year… not super high level and not super low level. It’s just somewhere in between.”
That balance has suited her. The championship’s mix of old‑school circuits, with gravel traps to penalize errors, aligns perfectly with the philosophy of her team boss, Andreas Jenzer. He has long championed the belief that young drivers should learn their trade on tracks that punish those long on bravado and short on talent.
“We can just experience this whole championship. It’s an exciting championship with cool tracks and good people around here, so it’s just nice to have a go at it,” she adds.
But the decision to begin her career in the Czech-run series was more than logical for another reason. Hakkinen’s mother hails from the city of Pilsen (or Plzen) in the west of the Czech Republic, better known for its beer than its racing drivers, and daughter Ella races proudly under a Czech licence and with the Czech flag on the cockpit of her Jenzer Motorsport-run Tatuus T-421 car.
The series visits her home country twice, and both weekends have pushed her firmly into the public spotlight, with national media keen to talk to the local racer with the famous father. Overwhelmed by the media interest, the series even had to inform journalists that there would be no onsite interviews at Brno in September.
Luckily, Formula Scout had been first in the queue and sat down with Hakkinen at Most, surprisingly perhaps, her first ever race in the Czech Republic.
“I have never been [to Most] before,” she admitted, laughing slightly at the irony of racing at her “home” track, just 100km from Pilsen, for the first time. “I did one collective test here before. It’s a cool track. The atmosphere is really nice. The mountains are nice. Obviously, it feels exciting to be under the Czech flag and driving also in Czech Republic… there’s a lot of fans and everyone’s supporting me.”
She had her Czech family, as well as her father and half-brother-cum-manager, Hugo, along for support. And with two Czech teammates, Max Karhan and Teo Borenstein, the local fans were more vocal than anything she had experienced so far. “My teammates are also Czech, so they’re having their names all the time on the commentary and stuff,” she said.
Photo: F4 CEZ/Petr Fryba
The support obviously helped, as she raced to her best results of the season, two fifth place finishes in her two heats. Sadly, come the final she was caught up in the first corner chaos and had to watch the rest of the restarted race from the spectator bank.
“This weekend has been the best from the other weekends,” she says. “Race one was pretty good… I was fifth, and then today was also fifth, but I think I did a bit better because I got first rookie and first women’s trophy.”
She has now reached a point where rookie podiums are becoming routine. “I got my first rookie podium at the Slovakiaring, now it’s consistently a rookie podium.”
The next target is clear: “So now it’s a main race podium,” she says, smiling. And she has been getting closer.
With just the Hungaroring round at the end of October remaining, Hakkinen sits 12th overall in the standings, and top of the separate Woman Trophy; no mean feat against strong opposition such as Mathilde Paatz and Alexia Danielsson. In the rookie standings, she has moved up to fourth, with podiums in six of the twelve races so far.
The series takes in F1 venues such as the Hungaroring and the Red Bull Ring, as well as more old-school tracks like Most and the Salzburgring, giving a variety of experience.
“The tracks have been really fun. We’re progressing every race, which is nice to see. From Red Bull Ring to now, there has been a lot of progression. There’s not so much pressure; it’s just to gain experience basically.”
She gained an additional perspective through joining the E4 runners at Paul Ricard in July. “That was a really good experience because there’s really high-level drivers there and it’s good to learn from them. Different atmosphere, different strategies, different everything compared to F4 CEZ. And the track was completely different, really wide, no gravel, so it was hard.”
She acquitted herself well, qualifying seventh and tenth out of 18 rookies in the two sessions, although the races didn’t go quite to plan.
Andreas Jenzer and his squad have developed plenty of talented young drivers over the years, and can bring out the best in them in a relaxed environment.
“Andreas also is a very good person to be around and to learn from,” she says. “The team has been really helpful. The people here are very supportive… the engineers also are very funny and everybody gets along very well.”
Jenzer himself notes that Hakkinen is a delight to work with. She listens to her engineers, takes advice and instructions onboard and has developed a strong bond with her experienced race engineer, Peter Fluckinger.
She also speaks warmly about her teammates, most of whom are more experienced than she is in cars. “They’re good drivers and good teammates… it’s nice to compare to them. Everybody has their own opinions and their own experience after a session… it’s nice to hear from other drivers what they think.”
That willingness to listen – and to learn – is becoming one of her defining traits.
The papaya‑orange Jenzer car is impossible to miss in the F4 CEZ paddock. Häkkinen’s place in the McLaren Driver Development Programme was confirmed late last year, and while she is still early in her career, the support structure is already shaping her.
Photo: F4 CEZ/Petr Fryba
“The McLaren programme offers broad support, both on the media side and the technical side for racing drivers,” Hakkinen explains.
“It’s exciting because I’m also following in my father’s footsteps,” she says. “It’s nice to be in an academy that supports me to go higher.”
McLaren’s role is not primarily technical; her Jenzer team is responsible for developing her driving, her mechanical understanding, working with the telemetry and her racecraft. Instead, the academy focuses on the broader demands of modern motorsport.
“They give you tips on sleep, nutrition, and social media,” she explains. “That’s what they talk about the most… they teach us the outside things that we can do better as a racing driver.”
She attends camps at the McLaren Technology Centre, but doesn’t want to get drawn as to when or if she might be let loose on the F1 simulator.
Her 2027 plans have not yet been announced. McLaren support two of its Driver Development Programme drivers in F1 Academy, Ella Lloyd and Emma Stevens. Could Ella, a popular name for women drivers it seems, replace one of them next year? “It’s not sure, it’s not confirmed yet for F1 Academy,” she says. “For sure, just keep doing F4 for next year and just to keep going up.”
Motor-racing is full of former drivers, admittedly not all to Hakkinen senior’s level, who encourage their sons or daughters into karts. But as Ella Hakkinen explains that was far from her case.
“No, it was my grandma who put me into karting,” she explains. Not the Finnish one, but the Czech one!
“She has absolutely no background in karting. It was during the summer break and we just came to an indoor karting arena. We went once with my little brother and we absolutely loved it. And then we went almost every single day in the summertime.
“Then my father decided to put us into real go karts in Cheb [a kart track close to the German border] because we really liked it.
“We were pretty fast so my dad then decided to take us to in Italy to drive in more competitive events and it just kept going from there.”
Karting became serious. And last year, racing with Fusion Motorsport in Britain, she found her stride.
“They supported me really well and I had a really fun season. They had really good people,” she says. “We went to plenty of tracks and the whole season was really good because I just kept progressing every time, every race, getting better and better. I kept progressing every race.
“Obviously, the Europeans were a really cool experience. And the Champions of the Future Academy also.”
In common with most karters who move up to single-seaters, tyre management has been the biggest lesson to be learned.
“Karting is just – you go drive, you come in the pits. But here you really need to think about it. You need to do extra things – cool down, everything else.”
She also highlights the physical scale of the car. “The car is a bit wider than a go‑kart… go‑kart tracks are very narrow and the karts are small. Here everything is larger, so you really need to learn that.”
Of course, not every budding F1 driver has a two-time world champion to call on for tips. The cars have become a lot more sophisticated than the Formula Ford 1600s that her father began racing with 40 years ago, but the principles and techniques are timeless.
But racing fathers can also be a curse; interfering in the team’s work and putting the driver under extra pressure.
As Ella Hakkinen explains, her father is “like a mix. He does stay in the background during the races, which is better, but during the tests he does help me a bit with driving.”
Photo: McLaren
Crucially, he avoids interfering with the team. “He is there mainly just to support. You don’t want to put too much pressure on the driver.
“He gives me tips and recommendations on what to do, and sometimes he does look at the data with me which is nice.”
If she needs him, he’s there. If she doesn’t, he stays out of the way. It is, by all accounts, the ideal balance.
Hakkinen is in no rush. Gaining experience, learning the ropes, making steady progress, earning podiums, then class wins and ultimately challenging for overall honours.
“I’m young, so I still have a lot of time,” she says. “For sure, to progress, to keep going step by step. I just want to have fun for the next couple of races. We race on some cool tracks so I’m really excited.”
When your tutors are Jenzer Motorsport, Mika Hakkinen and McLaren, the emphasis is unsurprisingly on developing ‘in the right way.’
Ella Hakkinen has been listening, learning and improving every weekend. And is clearly loving the experience.