Sebastian Vettel defends Kimi Raikkonen: “Still one of the best”. Seb thinks Kimi deserves to achieve better results this year.

Sebastian Vettel defends his Scuderia Ferrari teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, after the Finnish driver was criticised for his performance during the first three races of the Formula One season, adding that Kimi deserves to achieve better results this year.

While Sebastian Vettel managed to score two victories since the championship started, in Melbourne and most recently in Bahrain, the 2007 F1 world champion had a much more difficult beginning of the season and ahead of the 2017 Russian Grand Prix has not yet scored a podium finish: “I think he probably didn’t have the races he deserved. At the last race obviously the start and the first lap cost him a lot, otherwise I’m sure he would have both been on the podium.” – Sebastian Vettel said yesterday in Sochi.

Sebastian is most definitely in a better position to judge the performance of the man sitting on the other side of the Scuderia Ferrari’s garage: “In contrast to outsiders, I see exactly what happens – that things didn’t go in his direction so far – but I don’t think that there is any doubt in the paddock that he is one of the most talented drivers that F1 has.”

The German driver points out his own period of poor results: “If you look back last year, I had some races where things didn’t come way — it’s up and down but usually throughout the season it sort of equals out.” – Sebastian explained, as reported by Tuttosport.

The German also said that despite his current lead there is no hierarchy at the Maranello team regarding the position of the two drivers: “I think the way we’ve raced in the last two and a half years, everything is straightforward. Sometimes it was close, sometimes it was too close as well. I remember China last year from my side, that was never ideal, but you try to fight your teammate as well as all the others. But more than anything I think we know and we understand that we are racing for Ferrari.”