Mika Salo

Mika Salo

File:Mika Salo Le Mans 2009 cropped.jpg Mika Salo in 2009
Born	(1966-11-30) 30 November 1966 Helsinki, Finland
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	Finnish
Active years	1994–2000, 2002
Teams	Lotus, Tyrrell, Arrows, BAR, Ferrari, Sauber, Toyota
Entries	111 (109 starts)
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	2
Career points	33
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First entry	1994 Japanese Grand Prix
Last entry	2002 Japanese Grand Prix

Mika Juhani Salo (born November 30, 1966 in Helsinki) is a Finnish professional racing driver. He competed in Formula One between 1994 and 2002. His best ranking was 10th in the world championship in 1999, when he stood in for the injured Michael Schumacher at Ferrari for six races, scoring two podiums. He also won the GT2 class in the 2008 and 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Career

Formula Three and Japanese racing

In 1989, Helsinki-born Salo competed in the British Formula 3 Championship, racing for Alan Docking Racing. He raced with the Reynard Toyota package which was not the season's best. Staying with Alan Docking Racing for 1990 and moving to a more competitive Ralt chassis, he raced against countryman and fierce rival Mika Häkkinen in Formula Three, finishing second to him. In 1990, Salo was caught driving under the influence in London. Subsequently the chance of him gaining a FIA Super Licence necessary to compete in Formula One was destroyed in the short-term. He then moved to Japan in an attempt to revive his damaged reputation.

Formula One

1994–1998: Lotus, Tyrrell and Arrows

"I think it was six days before the race they said, 'Do you think you can drive it next weekend with no testing'. I'd never driven a Formula One car before in my life; that's what I've always wanted, so I said yes. I know the circuit so I don't think it's a problem. The next two nights I lay in my bed smiling, so happy it was happening."

Salo commenting on his first race for Lotus.

After a few years racing in Japan he made his first Formula One start at the penultimate round of the 1994 season in Japan for the ailing Lotus team. He was kept on for the season's finale in Australia. Following the collapse of Lotus following the end of the season, Salo moved to Tyrrell for 1995. He was to spend three years with the team, scoring points several times. In the 1997 Monaco Grand Prix he completed the whole (rain-shortened and -slowed) race without refuelling, taking fifth place ahead of the faster Giancarlo Fisichella as a result. Despite a promising 1998 with Arrows, he had no full-time drive in 1999.

1999: British American Racing and Ferrari

Salo driving for Tyrrell at the 1995 British Grand Prix.

File:Mika Salo 1999 Monza.jpg

Salo testing for Ferrari at Monza in 1999.

Following an injury to BAR driver Ricardo Zonta, Salo took his place for three races whilst the Brazilian recovered. However a greater opportunity arose when Michael Schumacher broke his leg in a crash during the 1999 British Grand Prix. Salo was selected as his substitute to partner Eddie Irvine at Ferrari. In his second race in Ferrari at the 1999 German Grand Prix Salo led for part of the race and would have scored a Grand Prix win but team orders demanded that he give the lead to Irvine, who at the time was fighting for the championship with Mika Häkkinen. Following the race, Irvine handed his victory trophy over to Salo as a gesture of gratitude. He also finished third at Monza, ahead of Irvine.

2000–2002: Sauber and Toyota

Salo was back full-time in 2000 with Sauber, taking 11th in the championship, although he left the team at the end of the season to join the new Toyota team in preparation for its Formula One entry in 2002, and also cited a desire to score podiums rather than lower points-scoring positions. He scored two points for Toyota in their first season, becoming the first driver since JJ Lehto at the 1993 South African Grand Prix to score points on a team's debut by finishing sixth at the 2002 Australian Grand Prix. He retired from Formula One at the end of 2002, after surprisingly getting fired from Toyota (though it was later revealed that he was not on good terms with the team due to his deemed poor performance).

During his Formula One career, he achieved two podiums, and scored a total of 33 championship points.

Post-Formula One

His first post-Formula One race came at the 2003 12 Hours of Sebring, driving the UK-entered Audi R8, the same car he was due to race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans if it had not run out of fuel already after the first hour. He raced in four CART races for PK Racing during the same year, his best finish being third in Miami in his second series start.

Because of his strong links with Ferrari he was picked up to be part of the development program of the Maserati MC12 GT racer. He made his FIA GT debut in 2004, narrowly losing the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in a Ferrari 575. After that he entered the last four races of the season in the Maserati, winning two races and finishing second once.

2005 was a year somewhat lost in the doldrums with only two participations with the Maserati MC12 in the ALMS GTS-class, a competition where the car turned out to be not even half as competitive as in the FIA GT series.

For 2006, Salo returned to racing full-time, signing with AF Corse in the FIA GT to drive the Ferrari F430 and later on in the year with Risi Competizione in the ALMS. He was victorious in class in the 24 Hours of Spa and finished third in the FIA GT2 Drivers' Championship with 61 points, while his efforts in the ALMS contributed to Risi's Teams' Championship cup. In the following year he continued with Risi Competizione in the ALMS and took the GT2 class honours in the 12 Hours of Sebring and the championship along with teammate Jaime Melo. They won a total of eight races out of twelve in the class. In addition, he won the RAC Tourist Trophy with Thomas Biagi when substituting for Michael Bartels, driving a Maserati MC12 once more.

Salo and Melo with Risi Competizione earned the first team At-Large honours on the 2007 All-American Racing Team, as voted for by the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters (AARWBA). Salo raced again in the ALMS for Risi Competizione in 2008. Although he was not successful in defending his previous year's titles, he won the GT2 class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, coming in 18th overall.

In 2009, he joined the Risi Ferrari team at the blue-riband races only, the 12 Hours of Sebring, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Petit Le Mans event, winning all three of them. Having won these enduro races all more than once, Salo felt he was ready for a new challenge. He set his mind on NASCAR, and had his first test with Michael Waltrip Racing at the half-mile New Smyrna Speedway in November 2009.

From 2010-12, Salo competed in the Gold Coast 600, an endurance event for the V8 Supercars. In 2010, he partnered with Walkinshaw Racing's Andrew Thompson and retired from both races. For 2011-12 he raced with Will Davison and the Ford Performance Racing team, finishing 2nd in the 1st race of 2011 and winning the 2nd race in 2012.

In 2014, driving for Maranello Motorsport, Salo co-drove a Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 to victory at the Bathurst 12 Hour alongside Australian motor racing legends Craig Lowndes and John Bowe, and another local Australian driver Peter Edwards.

Controversy

While driving in British F3, Salo was convicted of drunk driving.

Salo is a supporter of the Hells Angels. He claims to have friends in the Hells Angels and has a tattoo of "Big Red Machine 81 Support Finland".

Personal

He currently resides in Helsinki and he has two children with wife Noriko Salo (Endo), son Max and daughter Mai. His godson Jesse Krohn competes in Formula Renault, both in Scandinavia and the UK.

Like fellow Finns Keke Rosberg and JJ Lehto, both former Formula One drivers, Salo has commentated on several F1 races on MTV3 and the pay-channel MTV3 MAX. During the controversial 2005 United States Grand Prix, he walked out of the commentator's booth in mid-race after the Michelin teams refused to race.

He has rejoined the MTV3 F1 report crew for the 2011 season, providing expert commentary on races thus replacing Erkki Mustakari as Oskari Saari's co-commentator.

Since 2011, Salo has been hosting the Finnish TV-show, Virittäjät ('Test Drive by Mika Salo'), along with his co-host Tomi Tuominen, who is a Finnish journalist, television presenter, sports commentator and co-driver in the WRC. At first, Salo tests the two cars built by the cars owners, on the Finnish Ahvenisto Race Circuit and present his initial thoughts of the vehicle. He would then proceed to make a quick time attack lap around the track and afterwards give feedback of the car to its owner. At the end of the show, Salo reviews the car with his co-host, Tomi Tuominen. In 2013, the shows format was changed a little for the third season. Now, instead of two cars per episode, Salo drives and reviews only one car, then races the car on the Alastaro Circuit to set a time which the car owner would have to beat. In the last episode of each season, Salo selects a winner out of all the competing cars and shortly explains why he believes that the car and its owner in question deserved to win. The show continues to follow this format to this day and the fifth season of the show was aired on TV, in 2015. It is unknown, if a sixth season is in the works for 2016.

Helmet

Salo's helmet was originally dark blue with a white halo on the top (with a red line inside), 2 white stripes (with a red line inside) going from the rear going down diagonally to the sides of the helmet and a white trapezoidal shape on the chin area (with blue outline), slightly based on Prost's helmet. When he raced in Formula One, he changed the helmet from dark blue to sky blue with the rest of the elements intact.

Racing record

Complete Japanese Formula 3000 Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	DC	Points
1991	Ad Racing Team Co. Ltd.	SUZ	AUT 14	FUJ DNQ	MIN 6	SUZ DNQ	SUG DNQ	FUJ 18	SUZ DNQ	FUJ C	SUZ Ret	FUJ Ret	23rd	1
1992	Ad Racing Team Co. Ltd.	SUZ Ret	FUJ 15	MIN 4	SUZ Ret	AUT 10	SUG Ret	FUJ 18	FUJ 17	SUZ 7	FUJ 15	SUZ 5	15th	5
1993	Ad Racing Team Co. Ltd.	SUZ 13	FUJ 9	MIN 7	SUZ Ret	AUT C	SUG 6	FUJ C	FUJ DNS	SUZ 17	FUJ Ret	SUZ Ret	17th	1
1994	Team 5ZIGEN	SUZ 3	FUJ 5	MIN 7	SUZ 11	SUG 12	FUJ Ret	SUZ 8	FUJ Ret	FUJ	SUZ 10		7th	6

Complete Formula One results

(key)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	WDC	Points
1994	Team Lotus	Lotus 109	Mugen Honda V10	BRA	PAC	SMR	MON	ESP	CAN	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	EUR	JPN 10	AUS Ret		NC	0
1995	Nokia Tyrrell Yamaha	Tyrrell 023	Yamaha V10	BRA 7	ARG Ret	SMR Ret	ESP 10	MON Ret	CAN 7	FRA 15	GBR 8	GER Ret	HUN Ret	BEL 8	ITA 5	POR 13	EUR 10	PAC 12	JPN 6	AUS 5	15th	5
1996	Tyrrell Yamaha	Tyrrell 024	Yamaha V10	AUS 6	BRA 5	ARG Ret	EUR DSQ	SMR Ret	MON 5	ESP DSQ	CAN Ret	FRA 10	GBR 7	GER 9	HUN Ret	BEL 7	ITA Ret	POR 11	JPN Ret		13th	5
1997	Tyrrell	Tyrrell 025	Ford V8	AUS Ret	BRA 13	ARG 8	SMR 9	MON 5	ESP Ret	CAN Ret	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER Ret	HUN 13	BEL 11	ITA Ret	AUT Ret	LUX 10	JPN Ret	EUR 12	17th	2
1998	Danka Zepter Arrows	Arrows A19	Arrows V10	AUS Ret	BRA Ret	ARG Ret	SMR 9	ESP Ret	MON 4	CAN Ret	FRA 13	GBR Ret	AUT Ret	GER 14	HUN Ret	BEL DNS	ITA Ret	LUX 14	JPN Ret		13th	3
1999	British American Racing	BAR 01	Supertec V10	AUS	BRA	SMR 7	MON Ret	ESP 8	CAN	FRA	GBR										10th	10
	Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro	Ferrari F399	Ferrari V10									AUT 9	GER 2	HUN 12	BEL 7	ITA 3	EUR Ret	MAL	JPN
2000	Red Bull Sauber Petronas	Sauber C19	Petronas V10	AUS DSQ	BRA DNS	SMR 6	GBR 8	ESP 7	EUR Ret	MON 5	CAN Ret	FRA 10	AUT 6	GER 5	HUN 10	BEL 9	ITA 7	USA Ret	JPN 10	MAL 8	11th	6
2002	Panasonic Toyota Racing	Toyota TF102	Toyota V10	AUS 6	MAL 12	BRA 6	SMR Ret	ESP 9	AUT 8	MON Ret	CAN Ret	EUR Ret	GBR Ret	FRA Ret	GER 9	HUN 15	BEL 7	ITA 11	USA 14	JPN 8	17th	2

Complete CART results

(key)

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Rank	Points
2003	PK Racing	STP	MTY	LBH	BRH	LAU	MIL	LS	POR	CLE	TOR	VAN	ROA	MDO	MTL	DEN 14	MIA 3	MXC 5	SRF 11	FON C †	16th	26

† Cancelled due to California Fires

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2003	Audi Sport UK Arena Motorsport	Frank Biela Perry McCarthy	Audi R8	LMP900	28	DNF	DNF
2007	Risi Competizione	Johnny Mowlem Jaime Melo	Ferrari F430 GT2	GT2	223	DNF	DNF
2008	Risi Competizione	Gianmaria Bruni Jaime Melo	Ferrari F430 GT2	GT2	326	19th	1st
2009	Risi Competizione	Jaime Melo Pierre Kaffer	Ferrari F430 GT2	GT2	329	18th	1st
2010	AF Corse	Luís Pérez Companc Matías Russo	Ferrari F430 GT2	GT2	0	DNS	DNS
2014	SMP Racing	Sergey Zlobin Anton Ladygin	Oreca 03R-Nissan	LMP2	303	37th	12th

Complete GT1 World Championship results

Year	Team	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	Pos	Points
2010	Mad-Croc Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	ABU QR Ret	ABU CR 15	SIL QR	SIL CR	BRN QR 19	BRN CR 12	PRI QR	PRI CR	SPA QR	SPA CR	NÜR QR 15	NÜR CR 23	ALG QR	ALG CR	NAV QR	NAV CR	INT QR	INT CR	SAN QR	SAN CR	52nd	0

Complete V8 Supercar results

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	Final Pos	Points
2010	Walkinshaw Racing	YMC R1	YMC R2	BHR R3	BHR R4	ADE R5	ADE R6	HAM R7	HAM R8	QLD R9	QLD R10	WIN R11	WIN R12	HID R13	HID R14	TOW R15	TOW R16	PHI Q	PHI R17	BAT R18	SUR R19 Ret	SUR R20 Ret	SYM R21	SYM R22	SAN R23	SAN R24	SYD R25	SYD R26					NC	0 +
2011	Ford Performance Racing	YMC R1	YMC R2	ADE R3	ADE R4	HAM R5	HAM R6	BAR R7	BAR R8	BAR R9	WIN R10	WIN R11	HID R12	HID R13	TOW R14	TOW R15	QLD R16	QLD R17	QLD R18	PHI Q	PHI R19	BAT R20	SUR R21 2	SUR R22 14	SYM R23	SYM R24	SAN R25	SAN R26	SYD R27	SYD R28			52nd	201
2012	Ford Performance Racing	ADE R1	ADE R2	SYM R3	SYM R4	HAM R5	HAM R6	BAR R7	BAR R8	BAR R9	PHI R10	PHI R11	HID R12	HID R13	TOW R14	TOW R15	QLD R16	QLD R17	SMP R18	SMP R19	SAN Q	SAN R20	BAT R21	SUR R22 18	SUR R23 1	YMC R24	YMC R25	YMC R26	WIN R27	WIN R28	SYD R29	SYD R30	NC	0 †

† Not Eligible for points

Complete International Superstars Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	DC	Points
2012	Swiss Team	Maserati Quattroporte	MNZ R1 6	MNZ R2 16	IMO R1	IMO R2	DON R1	DON R2	MUG R1	MUG R2	HUN R1	HUN R2	SPA R1 5	SPA R2 3	VAL R1	VAL R2	PER R1	PER R2	19th	30

Complete FIA World Endurance Championship results

Year	Entrant	Class	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Rank	Points
2014	SMP Racing	LMP2	Oreca 03R	Nissan VK45DE 4.5 L V8	SIL	SPA	LMS 1	COA	FUJ	SHA	BHR	SÃO	8th	50