Heikki Kovalainen

Interesting facts

Born in Suomussalmi, Finland, he made his F1 debut with Renault in 2007 and nearly completed the entire season without a single retirement, until a suspension failure finally stopped him in Brazil. His only Grand Prix win came at the 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix for McLaren, making him the 100th different driver in history to win a Formula One race. A tyre manufacturing fault caused a heavy crash for him during the 2008 Spanish Grand Prix weekend, and he was airlifted to a Barcelona hospital with a minor concussion. Driving for the underfunded Team Lotus and later Caterham (2010-2012), he earned respect for consistently outperforming what the cars were capable of - in 2011 he out-qualified teammates Jarno Trulli and Karun Chandhok in 17 of 19 races. Life after F1 brought more silverware: he won the Japanese Super GT title in 2016 alongside Kohei Hirate, and in 2024 underwent successful surgery for an aortic aneurysm discovered during a routine health check. Heikki Kovalainen raced in Formula 1 from 2007 to 2013, across 7 seasons as a Finnish driver. He scored a total of 105 championship points over his career. His best season was 2007, when he finished 7th in the championship with 30 points.