Why we love Heikki Kovalainen

There are heaps of people who, after this weekend, have been singing the praises of Karun Chandhok, but that's a post for another day. Today, I want to talk about the Fun-sized Finn. In the past, I've been quite dismissive of him. Mostly because he was so very overshadowed by Hamilton at McLaren, but also partly because of the cute-and-little factor. He seemed to me to be an action-figure driver: lacking much personality, smaller than the others, good looking but is destined to be old news next year.

The man has proved me wrong. Not only was he the only driver from a new team to successfully bring his car home (rather than driving off the track or blowing a car part like the others), he finished ahead of Buemi's Toro Rosso. Considering that STR have had four seasons to perfect their racing formula, that's a strong endorsement for Heikki. Considering he's been driving in F1 for only one year longer than the Swiss (and, thus, not significantly more experience), Heikki did really well to out-match him a slower car.

He's also proved me wrong on the personality front. Perhaps it was that Lewis was the star of the show at McLaren, and he decided to keep his head down in his rookie year alongside Giancarlo Fisichella. Either way, he's revealed himself to be one of the most delightful people in the paddock. I subscribed to him on twitter, and discovered a chatty, friendly, refreshingly honest man. For the love of all that is good in this world, he's started a tweet with the words "my ass is fine". In addition, he recently started an official website. It's a far cry from the PR-friendly sites of drivers in the past - he runs competitions (including a grand prize at the end of the year where one lucky fan gets to meet him), he posts videos of things that he's doing, his bio is actually written by him...need I continue about the awesomeness of his PR approach?

All in all, he seems like an awesome guy; *hi5* to him for treating his fans with such bonhomie! Despite my loyalty to Senna and my respect for Chandhok, I'm picking Lotus as my New Team to Win in 2010. Partly because they seem to have the more competitive car, partly because Heikki is so lovely to his public, and partly because I want to see Richard Branson working as a flight attendant while wearing a skirt on Air Asia.

P.S. Further to this post, the picture was used as the header for Heikki's website, in case you didn't recognise it after the photoshopping.