 |
| Team |
McLaren |
| Nationality |
Finnish |
| Podiums |
1 |
| Points |
30 |
| Grand Prix entered |
17 |
| World Championships |
0 |
| Highest race finish |
2nd |
| Highest grid position |
6th |
| Date of Birth |
19/10/1981 |
| Place of Birth |
Suomussalmi |
|
 |
A year into his Formula 1 career, Heikki Kovalainen finds himself in one of the four most coveted seats on the grid.
McLaren's decision to sign him as Fernando Alonso's replacement over other more experienced options shows just how highly Ron Dennis and Co. regard the 26-year-old's abilities.
As well as proving his racing credentials in his rookie year at Renault, the Finn showed supreme levels of mental toughness to overcome a nightmare beginning.
A ragged drive on his debut in Australia prompted Flavio Briatore to question whether it had been the Finn's ‘brother' in the car.
Further mistakes in Canadian GP qualifying fuelled rumours that the team's test driver Nelson Piquet Jr was being lined up to replace him.
The speculation proved unfounded, as Kovalainen learned from his errors and raised his game during the second half of the season.
Six straight points finishes were followed by a superb second place in the monsoon conditions of Fuji – a race in which he passed countryman Kimi Raikkonen and then successfully held him off in the closing stages.
It was a hot streak that veteran team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella couldn't get near and Kovalainen ended 2007 as Renault's undisputed number one.
He joins McLaren as a stronger driver and intends to give Lewis Hamilton a run for his money. The signs from testing are that he will do just that.
The early years
Kovalainen became the latest star graduate of Renault's Driver Development programme last year.
A contemporary of Raikkonen in karts, the cash-strapped Finn's car racing career would have ended after just a single (very promising) Formula Renault season had Renault not stepped in.
The French company invested heavily in Kovalainen and placed him in British Formula 3.
He repaid Renault's faith by starring in F3, then moving to the Nissan World Series, which he dominated in 2004.
But Kovalainen's growing reputation wasn't just a consequence of his success in the junior categories.
Renault had begun to call upon him as an F1 test driver with increasing regularity, and Kovalainen proved very much at home behind the wheel of a grand prix car.
He really hit the headlines at the end of 2004, when he overcame Michael Schumacher and rally champion Sebastien Loeb to win the Race of Champions at the Stade de France.
A move into the inaugural GP2 season followed for 2005, and he was the man to beat for most of the year until Nico Rosberg and the ART team hit form and started demolishing his once-comfortable points cushion.
Rosberg ultimately snatched the crown at the final round, although the consensus was that Kovalainen had been equally impressive in what turned out to be a less competitive package.
Renault subsequently promoted Kovalainen to fully-fledged test and reserve driver status for 2006, before turning to him to fill the void left by the McLaren-bound Alonso for 2007.
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