Sebastian Vettel feels Kimi Raikkonen is "biggest natural talent" he’s faced in F1

Mark Webber, Daniel Ricciardo, Kimi Raikkonen and Charles Leclerc: these are the most talented teammate with whom Sebastian Vettel has had the opportunity to measure himself during his career, an amazing career that will come to an end next Sunday after the last round of the season, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina circuit.

The former Ferrari driver, now working for Aston Martin after six years with the Maranello team from 2015 to 2020, was a guest on the ‘Beyond the Grid’ podcast, and was asked to name the strongest teammate he had during his long career in the sport.

“I think Kimi [Raikkonen] is actually the biggest natural talent I’ve come across, ever,” said Sebastian Vettel on the podcast.

“Just in terms of raw speed, I think. And it shows in the car, obviously, but it shows also in any other form of car. I think switching – if there was a discipline of switching cars every day – after 10 days he would be lapping everybody else, just because he’s just a natural, it doesn’t take time to adapt to the car, to what the car requires. What the car asks him to do comes naturally to him. If you give him a steering wheel he knows what to do with it, in some situations for many drivers it is necessary to take measures, but for him it is natural” – Seb added about his former Ferrari teammate.

Kimi Raikkonen made his Formula 1 debut in 2001 at a very young age, immediately scoring points with Sauber and came close to the world title in 2003 and 2005 at the wheel of McLaren, later becoming world champion in 2007 with Scuderia Ferrari. Shortly thereafter he took a ‘break’ from Formula 1, going for other experiences in the world or Rally and Nascar before returning to Formula 1 with Lotus in 2012.

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In addition to being the most gifted in terms of talent, Kimi Raikkonen was Sebastian Vettel’s ‘ideal’ teammate: “He surprised me right from the first handshake because he looked me in the eye. We drivers are often ‘absent’ with our heads at the moment of a presentation. He, on the other hand, immediately had great respect for me. There was never an argument between the two of us because it was always direct. If we crashed into each other we talked about it, fixed what happened, maybe laughed about it…But there was never a question that anything could sort of shake up or destabilse the, I don’t want to say bond, but relationship that we had. With people, I think Kimi’s been exceptional.” – Sebastian Vettel concluded.