Kovalainen brings reassuring news: major heart surgery successful

It was quite a shock when Heikki Kovalainen was diagnosed with a heart problem. This required major surgery. The operation has now been successfully completed, the Finn told X.

Kovalainen was diagnosed with an enlarged aorta. The one-time Grand Prix winner, who went on to become successful in GT racing, was told of the health problem last November. Immediately it became clear that surgery was needed. Doctors advised him to have open heart surgery. A tough operation, not without risk.

Kovalainen heart surgery successfully completed

Meanwhile, Kovalainen reports that his surgery is behind him. He says he was operated on at Tampere University Hospital: "It was a wonderful, wonderful team of doctors and nurses and assistants that took care of me there. It was an open heart surgery, so I have marks forever now under this shirt on my chest."

He continued: "But the surgery went well. We managed to get done exactly what we were planning to do. So we got the diseased part of the ascending area out and put an artificial graft in place. It was obviously a big operation. I was feeling a bit rough a couple of days after the operation, but things have improved a lot since then, and I'm actually back to normal. The outlook is quite good. There is an opportunity to make a full recovery and regain full fitness, but, of course, the time will only tell eventually how it all works out, but so far, the estimation is quite good, so I'm very pleased with that."