For many, undergoing open-heart surgery would usually spell an end to any extreme activities like tearing through a Finnish forest or navigating through a twisty Japanese mountain road in a rally car. Not for Heikki Kovalainen.
The Formula 1 race winner and childhood rally fan has overcome the “biggest challenge of his life” to recover from a potentially life-altering surgery to return to the cockpit in Japan earlier this month. If anything, rallying - a discipline the Finn turned to after seven years competing in Japan’s Super GT came to end in 2021 - has been a shining light at the end of a dark and concerning tunnel. The former Renault, McLaren and Caterham/Lotus F1 driver of 111 starts has clung on to the thought of returning to the rally stages and used this to drive him on through his recovery.
“This is the biggest challenge of my life, and it's one of the biggest events of my life to be honest,” Kovalainen tells Autosport.
“The first motivation was just to be able to return to a sort of normal lifestyle. But then I have to admit that being able to return to rallying or even to a race car one day was also at the back of my mind. It would have been quite a big decision not to be able to race or drive rallying anymore. I still feel that I have the passion and the motivation, especially for rallying now. I have the passion to continue, perhaps not in the WRC or the very top of the world level, but still, you want to continue driving. These were the driving forces.”
Kovalainen can count himself very lucky as the Finn had been enjoying this rally chapter of his career - that has already delivered back-to-back Japanese Rally Championship titles (2022-23) for Rally Team AICELLO - completely oblivious to the heart condition he was carrying. The diagnosis of an ascending aortic aneurysm was only delivered after a chance medical check-up that his doctor friend convinced the 42-year-old to undergo last November as it had been more than 10 years since his last thorough examination. The findings were not something that could be ignored and pushed to one side, given an aneurysm - a weak spot in a blood vessel wall - can tear or rupture, causing severe life-threatening internal bleeding.
“It was a pure coincidence that we then decided to check the heart, so in a way I was lucky to get this checked,” he says.
Following the diagnosis, shortly after a transmission failure ended his outing in a Skoda Fabia Rally2 car at the World Rally Championship Japan finale, Kovalainen informed the AICELLO team that his rallying plans for 2024 were put on an indefinite hold with his health the utmost priority.
The 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix winner faced a dilemma most hope to never encounter. While his case was not deemed an emergency, it was not something the much-loved competitor and dedicated family man could simply ignore. Fully aware that an operation carried a risk of life-changing side effects that raised the prospect of never competing again, Kovalainen - who declares himself as not one of life’s risk takers - elected to undergo open-heart surgery at Tampere University Hospital, Finland in April this year.
“I could have continued without an operation, but with very heavy restrictions, and that didn't appeal to me very much,” he says. “My lifestyle is so active, even if you take rallying away, I enjoy doing sports and cycling and mountain biking and just generally my life is quite active.
“I considered the options that I was given quite carefully and, even though there are possibilities that something goes wrong during the operation or there might be some effects afterwards, I was willing to take that chance. I thought the odds were on my side. I'm still relatively young and fit and well and if you delay this operation, the chances might be worse in the future. One other consideration was that the rate the aorta was dilating, there was a chance I will have to have this operation within the next five to 10 years.”
“Once I made the decision, it [not driving again] did cross my mind if something went wrong and I don't recover as expected, I was fine with that" Heikki Kovalainen
While Kovalainen admits his own motorsport career has been risk-averse and conservative at times, he is most certainly resilient, revealing that tough moments in his circuit racing days have helped him deal with this health challenge.
“It’s a rough talk when they're [doctors] talking to you because they have to go through all the options - there is a possibility that you get a stroke or you get permanent disabilities from the operation, so it’s a rough talk,” he adds. “But I guess throughout the career, I've had sort of rough moments. It was a different kind of rough talk, so I’m sort of used to it.
“Once I made the decision, it [not driving again] did cross my mind if something went wrong and I don't recover as expected, I was fine with that. When you are leaving home for the operation and leaving your family [wife and one-year-old son] and you never know how it's going to be, there is a little bit of emotion there as well. On the day of the operation, I was totally calm and totally fine with the decision.
“Even in the morning when I went to the hospital, they [the doctors] said to me, 'Are you feeling nervous and do you want to take some medicine to relax you?' And I said, 'I'm cool with this.' In my life, I don't feel like I've been a risk taker. I've actually been quite on the conservative side, in my driving and generally all the decisions I take. I thought it doesn't feel like a big risk to me.”
Kovalainen was correct, the odds were on his side as the operation proved successful. Following nine days in hospital, he returned home where the road to reappearing on the rally stages began. The first five weeks of the journey he describes as being “a little bit rough” as he dealt with a raised body temperature and flu-like symptoms. Talking also proved a challenge initially after suffering inflammation from a tube being placed down his throat during the procedure. However, it wasn’t long until the thought of actually donning the crash helmet and race suit again was a realistic prospect.
“It was difficult to speak to people - every time I talked to somebody, I had to start coughing and, when you wake up in the morning, you just don't feel quite normal with this flu-type headache and heavy feeling,” he explains. “The doctors just convinced me that this is part of the recovery and not to be concerned about it.
“But then, after five weeks, things started to turn around and then quite rapidly within the next three to four weeks, I started to feel a lot better, and I was able to then move around a bit more. After eight weeks, I had a check-up with the doctor, and I was allowed to resume a bit of training with a bit of jogging and cycling, also go to the gym and do some strength training, but not heavy weights.
“I felt pretty good and, after 12 weeks, we did a very thorough check-up. We took images of the heart and checked the functionality and blood tests and checked the chest bone with the X-rays and it was all healed as well as they could expect. They told me that you can do whatever you want and no restrictions, and so then obviously, the idea for me to return to the rally immediately came to my mind.”
Making a full recovery from open-heart surgery is one thing, but jumping behind the wheel of a brand-new Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 car is most definitely an altogether different challenge given the circumstances. Would the body be able to sustain the violence of taming a rally car through a stage, would the speed still be there as it was before? These were among the questions facing Kovalainen ahead of the first test.
“It was a moment of joy [to be back in the car],” he says. “There were some sort of question marks, so it was quite exciting, but straight away when I jumped into the car and put the belts on the first test day, I had no pains anywhere after my first run.
“The concern for me was that, in rallying, you have to change direction with the wheel quite quickly and the hands and arms have to work quite hard and how that sort of twisting motion was going to feel across my chest, because obviously they [the doctors] opened the chest [in the operation]. After my first run, I realised that there's no issues. It was quite a big relief actually, and my vision and my other senses felt totally normal. Up to that point, it was a bit nerve wracking, was I going to have to call it a day or do I need more time to recover? All these questions were sort of lingering in my mind.”
With the questions answered in the most emphatic fashion expected, Kovalainen once again teamed up with regular Japanese Rally Championship co-driver Sae Kitagawa to tackle Rally Kamuy in Hokkaido, Japan two weeks ago. The journey from open-heart surgery to rally stage was complete. While brake issues hampered the pair on the final stage on the way to 14th overall, in reality, the result on the timing screens was secondary to the victory of merely being able to compete.
But this is just the start of the resumption of a promising rally career. Now that this challenging chapter of his career is over, Kovalainen jokes that he’s not working towards being the next “Kalle Rovanpera” but is already setting himself mental targets and is planning to contest more Japanese Rally Championship events, including Rally Japan and even some rallies in Europe.
“There are a lot of things that I can improve,” he says. “I probably won't become another Kalle Rovanpera, but I can still do a lot better. That sort of thing drives me.
“I still want to continue in Japan. I'm really enjoying working with the team and the Toyota guys there, and we have the new car now. There are eight rounds a year plus the WRC event, so it's about the right number. I’m enjoying being home as well, and also at the same time in Japan the level is about right for me that I can be competitive, and I can be fighting for the wins there. I know most of the roads now, and most of the rallies are familiar to me, which makes a big difference in rallying.
“We did the Finnish Rally Championship last year through my sponsor Secto, and also this year we had some plans to do some events in Europe, but we had to put everything on hold due to the operation. But we are probably going to be doing some events towards the end of the year.”
While grateful to be able to continue his passion for motorsport, this rollercoaster of the past eight months has given Kovalainen a new perspective on not only life, but a new-found respect for the skills of today’s medical professionals.
“I never wish for this to happen to anyone, but in a way, it was interesting to see how all the medical science nowadays works and how the nurses and the doctors and the surgeons and how they operate and how the hospitals are,” he says.
“It's quite mind-blowing what they can do, and in a way that also gives you a bit of perspective. I'm glad that I have come out of it now and am living proof that these operations can go well."
