In the spring, Heikki Kovalainen underwent complex open-heart surgery, and although it was successful, his future career was in jeopardy and depended on how the recovery period, which lasted more than a month, would go.
At the beginning of the summer, the former Formula 1 driver, who has performed well in the Japanese rally championship in recent years, said he was gradually getting back into shape and started training, but so far in a calm mode.
And now Heikki has recovered so well that he returned behind the wheel of a rally car in September and is preparing for a new start.
This month he already rode the Hokkaido Rally in Japan with his former team AICELLO and even fought for the podium, but due to a transmission failure that occurred in one of the stages he rolled back, lost time and could no longer claim a high result . But most importantly, his crew reached the finish line.
“If there were no technical problems, the overall rally went well; we were the fastest in a few high-speed sections,” Kovalainen said on social networks. – Overall this was our best performance on gravel paths, so I’m very satisfied! My physical condition is also in perfect order, so there is no reason to worry.
New interesting competitions await us in Italy in October: “Rally of Legends”. They will arrive soon and I will start together with co-driver Janne Ferm in the Citroen C3 WRC of the Secto Automotive LABS team.
I already expect this to be a great rally on asphalt tracks. But first I’m going to play golf in Poland for a whole week with Tommi Mäkinen, four-time world rally champion!”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
