“For him, it’s just…boom,” Sebastian Vettel names the ‘biggest natural talent’ he’s ever faced in terms of ‘raw speed’

Sebastian Vettel will drive the (presumably) final laps of his career in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this weekend. It’s been a momentous career – he’s won four consecutive world championships, 53 races, and millions of hearts. To say those fans will be teary-eyed when he leaves the sport will be quite an understatement.

There have been many rivals in his career – for championships, there was Mark Webber, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, and even Jenson Button (particularly in 2009). He’s had some teammates that gave him a hard battle as well (apart from Webber) – Daniel Ricciardo and Charles Leclerc stand out in this regard. But none of these great drivers is the ‘biggest natural talent’ he’s come across.

That title goes to his former teammate, Kimi Raikkonen. Speaking on Beyond the Grid, the four-time world champion said: “I think Kimi [Raikkonen] is actually the biggest natural talent I’ve come across, ever. 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.”

He added that Raikkonen was a ‘natural’: “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. Sometimes you feel it’s unfair, you need to get used to it first and get an idea of the track or the conditions, but for him, it’s just… boom.”

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Sebastian Vettel: There was never an argument with Kimi Raikkonen

Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen were teammates at Ferrari from 2015 to 2018, and they both enjoyed a good relationship during that time. The German thinks that out of all of his teammates through the years, he probably had the best relationship with Raikkonen. When asked if the Finn’s ability to adapt to the car was ‘infuriating’ as a teammate, Vettel disagreed.

“No, because, I think, I probably had the best relationship out of all the teammates I had. Because he was just so straightforward, there was never an argument. If we crashed into each other, we talked about it, fixed what happened, maybe laughed about it – it was my mistake, it was his mistake. But then, there was never a question that anything could shake up or destabilize, I don’t want to say ‘bond’, but the relationship that we had.”

From day one of Vettel’s career, the day that he walked in, Raikkonen was always respectful, while with other drivers, even if he’s shaking hands and saying hello – they felt as if they were not present, they were not here. The German thinks that ‘with people’, Raikkonen has been ‘exceptional’.

Also Read: The retiring Sebastian Vettel had to be ‘kicked out of the office’ by Aston Martin to stop him studying data late-night

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