Scuderia Ferrari drivers Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen insist that the Italian side will not use team orders at the Italian Grand Prix after the Finn outqualified his team-mate to take pole at Monza. Kimi stunned Monza on Sunday to outshine title rivals Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton, clocking Formula 1’s fastest lap of all time in the process.
With Ferrari favourites for a first home win since 2010, Vettel had entered the weekend expected to carry the Scuderia’s challenge, but he ended up towing Raikkonen into a place in the history books instead.
A clearly disgruntled Vettel planned to discuss matters further with his team after qualifying, but he will not expect Raikkonen to step aside as he tries to eat into Hamilton’s 17-point lead in the standings.
“If he’s starting from pole, I guess he’s allowed to win,” Vettel said. “It’s a long race. Obviously he wants to win, I want to win. Hopefully one of us will win.”
On the battle at turn one, Vettel added: “Obviously you are still always trying to get out ahead, no matter who you’re racing but for sure you try to avoid contact but then again, as I said, you try to avoid that anyway.
“It’s not like there’s another car and you say yeah, I’m happy to make contact. With our cars you can’t really afford to touch or be touched.”
Kimi Raikkonen outlined his ambitions for victory in Thursday’s press conference and does not see how Vettel’s title ambitions will influence the race in Monza.
“Obviously we know, as a team, we can race but we obviously need to be careful with each other but I don’t see how it changes to anybody,” he said.
“I don’t think anybody will purposely take a stupid amount of risk to damage somebody else’s car and yours at the same time. Same story.”
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