How Heikki Kovalainen went from open heart surgery to a rally car in just three months

Remember Heikki Kovalainen? Of course you do. Once-upon-a-time teammate to Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, a bona fide F1 winner and veteran of 111 grands prix between 2007 and 2013.

After his F1 career came to an end, the Finn found a home in Super GT in Japan, where his seven-year spell included a championship-winning campaign in a Lexus RC F in 2015.

He’s also made a success of rallying, committing to the Japanese Rally Championship in full in 2021 (he’s now a two-time champion) and contesting Rally Japan - now the grand finale to the World Rally Championship - in each of the last two years.

Heikki plans to go back for a third time later this week, which is utterly remarkable. Because in March… he had open heart surgery.

Let’s rewind. Last year, this fit-as-a-fiddle racing driver - who’d spent his entire career in tip top shape - was being urged by a doctor friend to have a check-up. Not because of any worrying symptoms, simply because it had been a while. With a newborn son and a racing career to juggle, it was months before Kovalainen found a gap in his diary. But no rush, right?

In November 2023, he had a scan. And the news wasn’t good. Doctors found an ascending aortic aneurysm - putting him at risk of a life-threatening rupture - and told him to stop all strenuous activity immediately. Rallying included.

“It was… I couldn't believe it,” Heikki recalls to TG. “The day before I went to the cardiologist to get the heart checked, I was doing running intervals and feeling fit and well. It’s a condition that usually doesn't [give] any warning until it goes. And then it's a very low chance of surviving.

“I think this section,” he says, gesturing to his chest, “if it splits, there are three layers in the aorta. And if one of those layers splits, you immediately get symptoms like sharp pain and stuff. But then you have a chance of getting to the hospital and getting actually operated [on].

“But if it ruptures, the blood loss is such… you almost have to be in the hospital to get it fixed. So it's quite scary stuff. Most people who have this issue, they don't know anything about it until it happens. And then they just drop dead.”

Yikes. Luckily Heikki’s condition wasn’t so extreme that he needed to be rushed to theatre right away. He had options. Knowing he wanted to stay active, and that the risks attached to the operation were small, he and his family settled on surgery. He went under the knife in Tampere, Finland, in late March.

The procedure was a success. But the road to a full recovery would take time. Heikki spent nine days in hospital after his operation before he was allowed home. A scan followed three weeks later, and then at the three-month mark a full check-up to make sure his chest bone had healed and that the repair job was holding up. It had, and it was.

Phew. Understandably he’s now an advocate for regular testing, and encourages others to get checked. “It's a bit of an annoying thing,” he says of the ordeal, “but I mean, what can you do? Touch wood, so far it's going okay.”

More than okay. Having had the all-clear, Heikki’s attention quickly turned to getting back behind the wheel. Which must have thrilled his surgeon. “The doctor said ‘If you want to return to rallying… you can’.”

But he was warned that he “might not be quite as sharp” as he used to be, at least to begin with. The doctor explained that although the heart bypass machine allows your body to function normally, it can have a lasting effect on the blood. Which means the brain and body need time afterwards to start performing normally again.

So a shakedown was organised for the first week of July. Barely 100 days after his op, Heikki clambered into the cockpit of a GR Yaris Rally2, not knowing what to expect. To his relief he felt fine straight away, although several months without proper training had taken their toll. “For the first time in a rally car ever, I felt out of breath. Even after a short stint.”

With a second, more intense day of testing under his belt, he felt confident enough to enter Rally Kamuy in Japan that weekend. The service tent bearing his image was flooded with messages of support, all scribbled in different shades of permanent marker like a school leaver’s t-shirt. The result was nothing to write home about - mechanical issues saw to that - but it didn’t matter. Heikki was back.

Since then he’s gone from strength to strength. Last month at RallyLegend in San Marino he earned his first podium post-surgery alongside co-driver Janne Ferm, and a week later he and Sae Kitagawa took victory at Rally Highland Masters in Japan.

Given everything that’s happened this year, he must still get one heck of a buzz from being at the sharp end in a racecar. “Yeah, I do. And I find rallying extremely difficult, making pace notes and driving from the pace notes, it's very challenging. I find it very motivating and interesting. I'm sure I can get better at it.”

Heikki reckons he’ll be driving for a few more years yet and that rallying will be his main focus. And although he’ll be on the WRC entry sheet at Rally Japan, he has no big ambitions to chase a top tier drive. Quite apart from anything else, he enjoys his home life too. “I think that's important to have the desire,” he says. “If you don't have the desire or the passion, it's time to stop.”

The last time Heikki stopped, it wasn’t through choice. After driving for Renault, McLaren and Lotus in F1 he moved to Caterham, but things went south when the bills started piling up and the team turned to drivers with money to try and make ends meet. We all know how that worked out.

Had you asked the Finn about his time in the sport in the three or four years after his exit, he admits it would’ve been a “sore subject”. And although he’s still “disappointed” with how things went (as a rookie he was tipped for stardom) he’s made his peace with it now.

“Had I had some money and budget to buy myself [a seat] I think I could have done that. Someone like Perez for example, you know? He has had some difficult moments throughout his career, but...” he tails off. No one seems able to get rid of him? “Yeah!” Heikki laughs. “He's also driven sometimes very well, but also whenever he has had not so good seasons, he had some backing to stay there. I didn't have that available. The results just weren't good enough.”

Looking back, Heikki admits he was “naive” to believe in Caterham’s potential. “The owners weren't really serious enough about becoming a competitive force in Formula 1. And we've seen quite a lot of these people, who have a lot of money and they are excited. They come into Formula 1 and then after two or three years, when you're not getting results and a lot of money is being spent, they get bored of it.

“I actually feel that I drove better during those years than I drove with Renault or McLaren. But when you're fighting for 17th or 19th position, it's very difficult to make an impact and to gain the momentum again to get back to a better team.”

He very nearly pulled it off, too. He had a meeting with Eric Boullier - then in charge of Lotus (which, for confusing sponsorship reasons, was now his old Renault team and not the other Lotus he’d driven for previously) - about going back there, but he’d already signed a two-year deal with Caterham and didn’t fancy a court battle to get out of it. Looking back, he thinks he should’ve gone for it.

Having spent a year in the background as Caterham’s reserve driver, his last appearance in F1 came for Lotus at the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2013, after being drafted in for the last two races of the season in place of fellow Finn Kimi Raikkonen, who needed back surgery. A pair of lowly finishes didn’t give him the boost he needed to rejoin the grid, and that was that.

Still, there are plenty of drivers who’d bite your hand off for some of Heikki’s highlights. Some memorable podiums, and of course that victory in Hungary in 2008 that made him F1’s 100th race winner. Not a bad stat to have on your CV.

Could he have achieved more with more time? Heikki pauses. “I think not,” he says. “In the end, I don't think I was ever going to be as good as Hamilton. I was never going to be as good as Verstappen.

“I think I could have done a better career than I did, had things worked out slightly differently. But who stays there long and who doesn’t, and who has the skills and who doesn’t quite have the skills… I think it works out pretty fair and pretty correctly.

“Whether I would have won more races or not, I’m not sure. I’m not bitter about it.”

And in hindsight, Heikki is glad for all the doors that opened after F1 was slammed shut. There’s still lots of racing to be done, he’s got a young family at home and his health scare is behind him. Life is good, right? “Yeah, absolutely! Many, many things to be grateful [for].

“Sometimes things go well in life, sometimes they don't. The main thing is just to get over them, and move on. It's not all that bad.”