Sebastian Vettel has called former 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”. there is,” he said.
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 clash at the 2017 F1 Singapore Grand Prix when Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen crashed entering Turn 1 and retired on the first lap. rice field.
But it was a racing incident, not malicious, 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 with Mark Webber, Daniel Ricciardo and Charles Leclerc, rates him as the most naturally 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 raw speed, and that’s manifested in the car of course, but it’s also manifested in other forms of cars.”
“If you have the discipline of changing cars every day, after 10 days he’ll be lapping everyone else. He has a natural tendency to take time to adapt to the car and what the car needs. there is no
“What the car wants from him comes naturally to him. Give him the steering wheel and he knows what to do with it, although in some situations it is necessary to take measures for many drivers. it is natural for him
Sebastian Vettel, who left F1 at the end of the 2022 season, also spoke about his relationship with Kimi Raikkonen.
“He surprised me right from the first handshake. He looked me right in the eye,” said Sebastian Vettel.
“We drivers are often ‘absent’ with our heads at the moment of the presentation. On the other hand, he immediately had a lot of respect for me.”
“It was always direct, so it was never an argument between the two of us. If we ran into each other, we talked about it, fixed what happened, laughed about it. ”
“But there was no question that something could shake something or destabilize something. I don’t want to call it a bond, but that’s the relationship we built. I think he was an extraordinary existence.”
Category: F1 / Sebastian Vettel / Kimi Raikkonen