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Heikki Kovalainen reached Formula One through the Renault Driver Development programme - in fact, every car he drove prior to F1 had a Renault or Renault-derived engine, and he made his début for their F1 team in 2007.
Karting
He began karting in the early ’90s and marked himself out as driver of promise with an encouraging second in the 1999 Formula A Finnish karting championship.
The following season he underlined his credentials with wins in Finnish Karting Formula Super A, the Scandinavian Championship, the Paris Bercy Elf Masters Championship and runner-up in the Finnish Championship. He was voted Kart Driver of the Year in Finland.
Racing in Britain
This was the moment he chose to began car racing and switch his attentions to the British championships. He entered British Formula Renault which, the previous year, had been won by compatriot Kimi Raikkonen before the Finn made an astonishing leap straight into F1 with Sauber for 2001. Kovalainen managed fourth with a pair of wins, beaten to the title by Carl Breeze.
Nonetheless, aided by the Renault Driver Development programme, he stayed in British racing and moved up to Formula Three with Fortec Motorsport alongside Brazilian Fabio Carbone for 2002. The team used a powerful new Renault engine.
Kovalainen came on strong late in the season, winning five of the last nine races. In the championship he finished third, behind Robbie Kerr and James Courtenay. At the prestigious F3 races in Macau and Zandvoort he finished second and fourth respectively.
World Series by Nissan & first F1 test
The RDD steered his career towards more powerful single-seaters: the (Renault-owned) World Series By Nissan. Kovalainen teamed up with fellow future F1 racer and Renault F1 team test driver Franck Montagny at the Gabord team.
Montagny was in his third year of World Series by Nissan, having won the championship in 2001, and wrapped up the title for a second time with nine wins. Kovalainen won just once and finished second in the championship with 134 points to Montagny’s 241.
Renault kept their faith in the young Finn and in December he tested a Renault F1 car (an R23B) for the first time, at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. Montagny and Jose Maria Lopez also drove. Kovalainen also tested for Minardi at Vallelunga, but it was Renault who signed him as their second test driver for 2004.
Kovalainen spent a second year in World Series by Nissan in 2004, moving to the Pons team. With Montagny gone he won the championship with 192 points and six wins ahead of Tiago Monteiro, another F1 racer of the future, who won five times and scored 162.
GP2 and Race of Champions fame
But it was his performance in that year’s Race of Champions in Paris that arguably earned him the most attention.
In the rapid knockout event he dispensed with F1 racers David Coulthard and Jean Alesi, followed by seven-time champion Michael Schumacher in the semi-final. He then beat World Rally Champion Sebastian Loeb over both stages of the final to win the event outright.
The following season saw Kovalainen graduate to the new GP2 series with the Arden International team. He had the distinction of being the first person to win a race in the category, and added another four wins during the season. Only a problem during his pit stop kept him from winning the Monaco round as well.
But he and Arden were caught out by the progress of Nico Rosberg and the ART team. Rosberg took over the lead of the drivers’ championship with three rounds remaining and beat Kovalainen by 15 points.
Kovalainen also returned to the Race of Champions in 2005, but was knocked out in the semi-finals by Tom Kristensen, by 0.067s.
F1 début
Renault promoted Kovalainen to full-time test driver for the F1 team in 2006, replacing Montagny. It proved an especially useful place to be when, during the off-season, it emerged that World Champion Fernando Alonso would be leaving for McLaren in 2007.
Kovalainen dutifully racked up over 23,000km of testing and was rewarded with a promotion to a race seat in Alonso’s place alongside Giancarlo Fisichella for the following season.
His arrival in the championship was not met with instant success. His ragged drive at Melbourne earned a public scolding from Flavio Briatore.
But Kovalainen settled in and within a few races was beating Fisichella. By the end of the year he had comfortably out-scored the Italian, although there was no denying the French team had lost their edge. It was Kovalainen that scored the team’s only podium finish of the year with a fine drive in the rain at Fuji Speedway.
Move to McLaren
Alonso’s year at McLaren ended in a falling-out that saw the Spaniard leave the team. Kovalainen made public remarks that he did not intend to be a ‘number two’ driver, suggesting he did not want an inferior role to Alonso at Renault.
Renault subsequently confirmed Alonso and Nelson Piquet Jnr for 2008, with McLaren announcing shortly afterwards that Kovalainen would take Alonso’s place alongside Lewis Hamilton.
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I read on Wikipedia that Heikki’s middle name is Johannes.