President Sergio Marchionne has called for the retention of both Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari for 2018, admitting the two former world champions are “great together”.
The Italian-Canadian was in Budapest as he joined in the team celebrations under the podium after a second 1-2 of the 2017 season at the Hungarian Grand Prix, a result that ended a winless run stretching back to Monaco two months ago.
Prior to the race, Sky Italia had speculated that both Vettel and Raikkonen, who are out of contract at the end of the year, will stay at Maranello next season with an announcement to be made in September at their home race in Monza.
Now it seems that will almost certainly be the case, based on Marchionne’s post-race comments, calling for the contracts to be done if they hadn’t already.
“Look there at the podium. They are great together,” he said as the drivers sprayed the champagne.
“It’s difficult to change this team now. Let’s see if we can keep them in 2018. I think they want to stay. The team is growing well, I don’t want to ruin it.”
On Thursday, Vettel had said there was “no rush” to sign a new deal, though hinted it was merely a matter of time, while Raikkonen too was waiting, with Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez both linked to his seat.
“It’s no different than any other year,” he had previously said. “It’s not really my decision, the team knows what is my preferred option and then see what happens.”
Watching Ferrari succeed also turned around Marchionne’s previous stance on Raikkonen, after earlier suggesting the 37-year-old wasn’t fully invested in the job he was doing.
Asked if his presence had any impact on how he raced, as he appeared to abide by the team’s position of Vettel as the No. 1, Kimi replied: “It made no difference,” he claimed. “Obviously we know as team-mates what we are supposed to do and, like I said, I had a pretty good run into the first corner.
“Being team-mates, we can fight but probably leave a bit more space and we’re not going to force the issue, compared to what we’d do with somebody else.”
Indeed, the 2007 world champion believes failing to beat Vettel in qualifying was a more critical factor to him not winning his first race since 2013.
“In the end, we got another one-two and I can look at what I did yesterday and blame myself for not giving myself a better chance in the race,” he said.
“My car was good, we had a plan as a team, Seb was first yesterday and he got away first. The aim was, in whatever way, to finish one-two. It made no difference whatsoever the President being here, I actually haven’t seen him apart from the podium.”