In McLaren’s ‘farewell to Heikki’ press release at the end of 2009, Lewis Hamilton said his departing team-mate was “one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever met”.

Like fellow Finns Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen, Heikki can appear quiet, even subdued. But, get him talking and he’s among the chirpiest, most open, most hard-thinking drivers in Formula 1. It’s clear he’s got bags of talent from his second place in the standings in the inaugural GP2 Series in 2005. But Heikki hasn’t always had the best car with which to show his chops as he now enters his sixth year in Formula 1.

Since he was up against the experienced Giancarlo Fisichella at Renault, then star-of-the-noughties Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, perhaps comparisons to his team-mates are unfair. He certainly proved his class against the qualifying speed of Jarno Trulli in the duo’s first year together at Lotus. If he can do that again in 2012, now paired up with Russian Vitaly Petrov for newly named Caterham, it will go some way to cementing his reputation for speed, as well as his nice-guy reputation.