What is going on with Heikki?

Abu Dhabi could well have been the last race for Heikki Kovalainen in a McLaren. He has been the second driver for the team in many respects and, although this isn't surprising now, it is quite a lot different to what expectations were a few years ago.

His career started from carting, like a lot of the other F1 drivers, where he did well, winning the Finnish Kart Driver of the Year award in 2000. He then moved on to car racing, being supported by Renault all the way up to Formula 1. He was fourth in Formula Renault and impressed in Formula 3 by finishing third in 2002, having won 5 races. He won the World Series by Nissan in 2004 and was named Finnish Driver of the Year.


Everybody stood up and looked when he appeared in the Race of Champions in 2004 and won it, becoming the youngest Champion of Champions. On his way, he beat DC, Juan Alesi and Michael Schumacher and, perhaps more impressively, Sebastien Loeb in a Peugeot 307 WRC car. That was the first time that Heikki had ever driven a rally car. His win prompted Peter Windsor to say:

We've just witnessed the birth of a new superstar.[...] His coordination, his feel and his touch is just sublime.[...] We won't see him immediately in Formula 1 but, when he arrives, he undoubtedly will take the sport by storm.

In 2005 he had a strong year in GP2, when he finished second behind Nico Rosberg. Having been Renault's test driver for 2006, he was promoted to a race seat for 2007, replacing the twice World Champion Fernando Alonso who was off to McLaren for a year full of controversy. He outperformed Giancarlo Fisichella but he didn't get a chance to shine as the car proved uncompetitive. His best result was a second place in Japan, which he inherited after the unfortunate crash of Vettel and Webber which took both of them out of the race.

As if the prospect of replacing Alonso in 2007 wasn't daunting enough, he had to repeat it in 2008 when he moved to McLaren. He ended up in 7th, while his teammate Hamilton won the championship. He did take his first win in Hungary though and a further two podium finishes in Malaysia and Italy. In 2009, in a uncompetitive car, he struggled and his best result was a 4th in Europe while Lewis won a couple of races when the car improved later in the year.


Although results show that Hamilton had the upper hand in most cases, a closer look reveals that Heikki at least had the speed to outperform Lewis, but possibly lacking a bit of race pace to support it. Germany was the rebirth for McLaren when Hamilton's car received a major upgrade, putting him 5th on the grid. Kovalainen was next to him in 6th, without the updates, and with 4 more laps worth of fuel on board. Lewis failed to capitalise when he got involved in a first lap incident which gave him a puncture but Heikki grabbed the last point in 8th.

Having been quiet for a while, Heikki has recently complained of always being the one to get the worst strategy when both drivers made it into Q3. He has certainly had the speed but lacked performance in the races. One has to wonder whether this is down to the car suiting Lewis more than him, or due to some of Heikki's own shortcomings. The 2010 season will probably see him in a different team, but with Timo Glock tipped to partner Kubica at Renault and Toyota leaving F1, he might have to look towards one of the new ones. No one really knows how they will do compared to the experienced and established ones and the uncertainty won't help him much. But I do feel that working with a team that could concentrate more around him will certainly help his confidence and we might finally see Heikki's potential materialising.