JANUARY 18, 2016

Aki Hintsa making progress amid cancer battle

Former McLaren doctor Aki Hintsa says he has made some progress since being diagnosed with cancer mid last year.

Former McLaren doctor Aki Hintsa says he has made some progress since being diagnosed with cancer mid last year.

The well-known 57-year-old Finn, who stepped away from F1 at the end of 2013 to focus on his clinic in Geneva, was diagnosed last July with a malignant abdominal tumour.

Hintsa, who has worked with the likes of Kimi Raikkonen, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and many other drivers past and present, has now told the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper that he was given only three months to live.

"Tests have shown that the majority of the tumour has already disappeared," he said.

However, he said he cannot talk of being cured, but rather of having achieved a "significant partial victory".

"The fact that I saw Christmas and the New Year is already a miracle," said Hintsa. "The probability is 99.5 per cent that I should no longer be alive.

"But the real miracle is the condition that I am in now."

Indeed, Hintsa is reportedly now well enough to do a keynote speech at the World Economic Forum next week.

(GMM)