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Today marks eight years since Heikki Kovalainen won his only Formula One Grand Prix.
The Finn had moved to the McLaren team at the start of the 20087 season after a maiden campaign at Renault. Ironically, he was moved into a race seat at Renault to replace the McLaren bound Fernando Alonso. A year later, he was replacing Alonso again as the Spaniard returned to Renault.
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The 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix was hotly contested between that year's main championship challengers, Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton, with Kovalainen in a distant third.
The close fight between the pair at the front saw Hamilton get a puncture on lap 41, dropping him out of contention. The race was Massa's to loose, while Kovalainen was still realistically out of contention.
With just thee laps to go, however, the engine in Massa's Ferrari failed, handing Kovalainen a maiden victory.
The win ended up being the penultimate podium of Kovalainen's Formula One career, with a second place at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix being the last time he finished on the rostrum.
After a tough 2009 season which saw McLaren struggle for much of the season, Kovalainen was replaced that season's world champion, Jenson Button. Kovalainen elected to join the new Lotus (later Caterham) team where he would see out his F1 career, besides a pair of stand-in appearances for his former team Renault, then called Lotus (unrelated), in 2013.
He currently drives for Lexus Team SARD in Super GT in Japan.
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