F1@70 FORMULA 1’S SEVENTY GREATEST INFLUENCERS PART 6 THE 2000s
AKI HINTSA MURRAY WALKER ROSS BRAWN MARIO THEISSEN FERNANDO ALONSO ADRIAN NEWEY DIETRICH MATESCHITZ CHRISTIAN HORNER MARTIN BRUNDLE DONALD MACKENZIE At the start of the new millennium, Aki Hintsa opened the eyes of the F1 paddock to new dimensions of performance. Hintsa was not a driver or a designer. He had no prior connection to motorsport. He was a doctor, and the potential he explored was not mechanical but human: the mind and body of the athlete in the cockpit.
In 1998 and 1999 he had been alongside Mika Häkkinen as his fellow Finn secured his two world titles at the expense of Michael Schumacher. Häkkinen knew of Hintsa’s work with the Finnish Olympic team, and that Hintsa had spent time as a doctor and missionary in Ethiopia, where he had studied the success of the country’s long-distance runners.
Fitness instructors had long been a part of the F1 scene, but Hintsa took a broader approach than the average physiotherapist, breaking down the elements of an athlete’s wellbeing into six categories: physical activity, nutrition, recovery, biomechanics, mental energy and general health. His work with a succession of drivers at McLaren – including Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Räikkönen – made Hintsa a familiar and respected figure in the paddock, and others queued for the services of his company.
Hintsa saw F1 as an ideal laboratory for his theories, and by the time he died of cancer in 2016, aged 58, his network of performance coaches was working with an array of clients, including corporate executives. Were Hamilton to win
