Kovalainen’s day

At the 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix, McLaren driver Heikki Kovalainen benefited from the problems of teammate Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Felipe Massa to become Formula One’s 100th winner.

Ecstatic he declared: “It’s fantastic. It’s a great moment for me. It has been a moment I have been targeting for many years now. Since I eyed the possibility to be an F1 driver, I wanted to improve my fitness to try to achieve this goal.”

Kovalainen admitted both Hamilton and Massa were quicker than him during the race, but the Finn said he just kept pushing hoping that Massa would have problems. In the end, the Ferrari driver retired three laps from the end, with an engine failure.

This win turned out to be the only one in Kovalainen’s F1 career, who also took four podiums, 1 pole position and 105 career points in 111 Grand Prix starts for the Renault, McLaren, Team Lotus, Caterham and Lotus F1 teams. After leaving Formula One, he raced in the Japanese Super GT series, where he won the championship in 2016.