Sebastian Vettel has called ex-Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen “the most natural talent” he has ever faced, and if he gives up the wheel “he knows what to do with it”.
Sebastian Vettel partnered Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari from 2015 to 2018 and the two won 14 Grands Prix. In three of those four years, Vettel finished the season second in the championship.
It’s a mostly harmonious partnership, with the exception of a collision at the 2017 Singapore F1 Grand Prix when Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen crashed entering Turn 1 and retired on the opening lap.
But it was a racing incident, not a malicious one, and Kimi Raikkonen says the two have “always been on good terms” after leaving F1.
However, Sebastian Vettel failed to add to Ferrari’s F1 world championship tally, leaving Kimi Raikkonen the last driver to win the drivers’ championship with Ferrari in 2007.
Sebastian Vettel, who has teamed up with Mark Webber, Daniel Ricciardo and Charles Leclerc, considers him the most talented driver Kimi Raikkonen has ever met.
“I think you are the most naturally gifted person I have ever met,” Sebastian Vettel told Beyond the Grid.
“I think it’s just about sheer speed, and that obviously manifests itself in the car, but it manifests itself in other forms of cars as well.”
“If you have the discipline to change cars every day, after 10 days double all the others. He has a natural tendency to take his time to adjust to the car and what it needs. There is no
“What the car wants from him comes naturally to him. You give him the steering wheel and he knows what to do with it, although in some situations measures need to be taken for many drivers. It comes naturally to him
Sebastian Vettel, who left F1 at the end of the 2022 season, has also spoken about his relationship with Kimi Raikkonen.
“He surprised me from the very first handshake. He looked me straight in the eye,” said Sebastian Vettel.
“We riders are often ‘absent’ with our heads at the moment of the presentation. He, on the other hand, immediately had a lot of respect for me”.
“He was always direct, so there was never an argument between the two of us. If we met, we talked about it, sorted out what happened, we laughed about it.”
“But there was no question that something could shake or destabilize something. I don’t want to call it a bond, but that’s the relationship we’ve built. I think it’s been an amazing existence.”
Category: F1 / Sebastian Vettel / Kimi Raikkonen
