This is a typical Finnish back road.
It's full of sudden crests and hidden dips.
So, as you drive along, you need to know about power on, power off,
feeling the car go light and the grip disappear.
You're going to become a racing driver.
So, to find out how the Finns wrap all this up into one big bundle of skill,
I went for a drive with one of the locals.
Unfortunately, the only person I could find was a retired bloke.
Mind you, he's still quite sprightly.
It's Hakkinen. He's going through the left-hander.
Mika Hakkinen won the F1 World Championship twice,
on both occasions, beating the most successful driver of all time.
Michael Schumacher said you were the only driver he really feared.
So, where did you learn car control?
Because they say the Finns, you know, they have an instinct for it
that other nations on Earth don't have. You can just do it.
We start doing this sport very, very young.
So, automatically, we learn car control.
I give you an example. If you put a British person
learning to play cricket when he's 25 years old,
it's too late to understand the name of the game.
Are you thinking through these corners or do you just feel it and you know?
No, honestly, what's going on now, we are going really slowly.
-Are we? -Yeah.
Sitting next to Mika, you get a fantastic demonstration of Finnish car control.
But if I was to learn more, I couldn't just be a passenger.
Tomorrow, in the interests of science,
though probably more for your entertainment I suspect,
the office has entered me in an amateur race on a rally circuit.
Thankfully, though, Mika has offered to train me up.
There's something else about Mika. He's not just helpful.
He's quite modest.
I'm not very good on gravel.
Last year, I went out with Jackie Stewart
and he won the World Championship three times only, instead of just two.
He taught me to be quite smooth and fast on a Tarmac circuit.
But can you teach me to be Finnish fast on a loose surface, do you think?
I can indeed.
The first and most important thing Mika would teach me
was a cornering move known as the Scandinavian flick.
And because he didn't want his mate's rally car wrapped around a tree,
we started off with some cones.
When we come with the car, how to trace the back end
to touching all of these cones to find a perfect slide.
Okay, this is how we get the back end around.
Then it was my turn.
A little left, a little right, on the gas, get the back end loose.
That's not enough, is it?
And action!
Better than the first run.
And then, finally...
You did it! You did it!
That's the Finnish way.
After we demolished all his cones, I took Mika out on the proper course.
Which he found relaxing.
A second turn in. A bit of a flick.
That wasn't bad.
-Whoa! -Whoa!
Sorry, I forgot which way to go there. Okay, third.
And then, with Yoda's guidance...
Now, back end out nicely here.
Stay on the gas. Yeah, good. Beautiful.
It all came together.
Oh-ho, good, excellent.
Lesson over, we stopped for a cup of hot reindeer blood
and talked about why the Finns are so suited to motor sport.
Tell me a bit about Sisu. What's Sisu?
Sisu in English means "courage".
What is to Finns is courage. Let me give you an example.
Okay, climbing a tree and jump down from there, so that doesn't mean Sisu.
That is not courage.
-That's stupidity. -Exactly.
Sisu we can relate very much in motor racing.
For example, you drive a rally car in a forest, extremely really fast,
and you need courage to be able to brake late, to go throttle really early.
Go very close to the apex of the corners.
And also, they're quite reserved, the Finns.
I mean, you, famously, when you were Formula One driving,
they'd ask you a really complicated question and you'd just say, "Yes."
-Yes. Yes. -That's right.
The reason I'm asking you is because I wondered if I might be...
in some way a bit Finnish myself.
I don't like noisy people, so does that make me Finnish?
-Do you think? -Yes.
At home, I quite like to have the spanners in my tool box in order of size,
so that I can always find the right one. Is that quite Finnish?
Yes, it is, very much. Personally, that's what I do.
If you're talking about the tool box, everything has to be very organized.
I quite like to have the air vents on my car all pointing the same way exactly.
Is that Finnish?
No.
The next day, it was time for me to mix it with the Finns.
I'd been entered in one of their folk races,
which are run on part Tarmac, part gravel,
and take place every weekend, all over Finland.
The Finns had kindly sorted me out with a typical folk racing car.
A 1967 Volvo Amazon.
In actual fact it has 200 hp, but in every other respect, it's scrap.
But there's a very good reason for this.
You see, there's a clever rule in folk racing.
All the cars in the race are given a nominal and equal value,
let's say it's 1000 Euros.
Then at the end of the race, you can go to any other competitor and say,
I want to buy your car, and he or she has to sell it to you.
It stops people spending too much money,
getting sponsorship and generally taking it too seriously.
It also means that the cars stay equal and the racing stays close,
which in turn sharpens the skills.
But frankly, when the other drivers arrived,
I stopped worrying about their skills.
The bloke over there is about 85.
And alongside him, the grid featured some housewives
a child, a teenager, and Bill Oddie.
Surely this can't be that difficult?
That girl next to me should be doing her maths homework.
Here we go.
By the time we hit the first corner,
it was obvious these were no ordinary pensioners,
children, housewives and Bill Oddies.
After you, Granddad.
Have a Scandinavian flick, Finnish person!
Damn, damn, I've lost it.
I'd forgotten what Mika had said that these guys start doing this
as soon as they can see over the wheel.
I'm getting burned.
I started to fight back.
I've passed the BMW!
That was an overtake on a Finnish person.
She's only 12, but that's not the point.
But the 12-year-old wasn't having it.
Oi!
Now normally, I'd have been happy to stay there in the nice comfy ditch.
But that's not what Mika would have wanted.
It was time to summon up some Sisu.
I'm going to have the Volvo.
Opportunity for overtaking.
Using Mika's training, I overtook a housewife.
Chance for glory.
And then Granddad.
But Bill Oddie was too much for me.
And in the end, I finished somewhere near the middle.
I think all my top level Finnish motor sport training
has made me exactly average.
But that was average in Finland. Anywhere else and I'd have been brilliant.