So Kimi Raikkonen has gone to Sauber F1 with Charles Leclerc taking his 2019 seat at Scuderia Ferrari. What then are the implications for Sebastian Vettel? Will he be the quickest Ferrari driver in 2019?
F1 journalist Joe Saward looks at the implications for Vettel and Ferrari in his latest post Raikkonen, Leclerc and the implications and says the following:
“The most interesting thing about the news is that Ferrari has decided that Sebastian Vettel’s comfortable situation at Maranello will now change.”- Interesting but not surprising as he has had his own way for a long time.
“For the last four seasons the four-time World Champion has had a relatively easy time with Raikkonen, which is reflected in their points scores in the different seasons: in 2015 Vettel scored 65 percent of Ferrari’s points, in 2016 it was 53 percent, in 2017 it widened again to 61 percent and this year it has been 58 percent. Admittedly, some of this was due to the fact that Raikkonen played second fiddle to Vettel but that was part of the comfort zone. Vettel is quick, no question, but on several occasions he has made mistakes under pressure and that has cost Ferrari a lot. If he comes under more pressure, will he make more mistakes? That is an interesting question.
Whether Leclerc is going to be controlled by team orders is another question (to which I am not expecting an answer until the racing begins) but even if that is the case, Leclerc can make it very obvious that he is quicker than Vettel if that is indeed the case and he wants it to be noted.”
As was Daniel Ricciardo when he joined Vettel at Red Bull Racing.
“It is hard to judge how good Vettel ultimately is because his career has been spent in fairly protected positions with Red Bull Racing (where he was considered the golden boy) and then at Ferrari (where Kimi has been compliant when required). The one year when we saw Vettel under pressure from a team-mate was in 2014 when he was up against Daniel Ricciardo and he ended up being beaten by the Australian, 238 points to 167. That provides an interesting background to the fight ahead.
“What this move ought to do is to beef up the Ferrari challenge for the Constructors’ Championship, which has been somewhat blighted in recent years by Raikkonen’s lower rate of scoring. With Ferrari facing a reduction in the money it gets from F1 just for being there, the prize money thus becomes more important and so the need for two highly-competitive drivers increases.”
Yep, time for Vettel to dig deep, stop making mistakes and go to the next level!
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