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It is not official yet, but it is almost certain that Four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel is making his move to Ferrari come 2015. And awaiting the arrival at the Scuderia is none other than his buddy Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn has a contract with Ferrari till 2016 and is slated to stay with the team for the next season.
But what will be interesting to watch is that how will their driving evolve given that both the drivers are World Champions, are fierce competitors and would raring to get back to winning ways after having a tough 2014 season with their respective teams.
Alonso-Raikkonen – Failed to live upto expectations
While the Ferrari combination was touted to be an exciting pairing as of last year, the current season turned out to be below par for either of the drivers as both of them combined as a team. Alonso was by far the better driver in the Ferrari getting the maximum possible out of the new V6 engine, but Raikkonen struggled to make it to the top 5 consistently.
The reason: the car (or more importantly the engine) lacked pace and the Ferrari was struggling at long straights and outdone by the Mercedes-powered cars. The outcome was that Ferrari had no race wins and only two podiums so far to the credit of Fernando Alonso at the Chinese and the Hungarian GP. They are also struggling at fourth place behind Mercedes, Red-Bull and Williams in the constructors tally.
So while Raikkonen has shown touches of his brilliance on a few occasions, the Finn was clearly outdone by his Spanish team-mate. While Alonso is sixth with 141 points, Raikkonen is struggling in twelfth place with only 47 points in 15 races. Alonso also has a better record between the two at 14-2 (Alonso has finished better in 14 out of 16 races than his team-mate Raikkonen). It’s been a disappointing season, probably one of the worst in recent years, for the Scuderia and the fans would be hoping for a turn-around in 2015.
The Ferrari conundrum
It has been a difficult year for the Italian team on and off the track. At the management level as well, Ferrari has undergone a lot of changes. Stefano Domenicali was the first to go followed by Chief of Ferrari F1 Luca Di Montezemolo who was under a lot of fire for failure of the Italian team.
The major reason for his exit was the bulk of criticism from Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive of Ferrari's parent company, Fiat. As the new team Principal, Marco Mattiacci has the responsibility of turning things around, and probably his way of working hasn’t gone down well with Alonso who is all set to move out of them for 2015.
A major challenge for Mattiaci would be to get the 2015 engine to be far more superior in order to battle with the likes of Mercedes, Honda and Renault.
Vettel-Raikkonen – Friends to battle on the track
The fact that Vettel and Raikkonen are best of friends off the track is no secret. But on track, both drivers are keen to muscle their cars around. But will both of them be able to handle the on-track and performance pressures attributed to them in the midst of a Ferrari revival after a disappointing 2014 season?
We all know Vettel and Raikkonen are great drivers, but teammate rivalries have been fractious to say the least. And both the drivers have been involved in quite a few battles with their current and former-teams. Vettel had quite a rivalry with former team-mate Mark Webber at Red-Bull and more recently with Daniel Ricciardo who has shown his skills in the Red-Bull by managing to beat his German counterpart.
Raikkonen’s relationship with Alonso has been sober so far, but even he has had issues with the likes of Romain Grosjean (former teammate at Lotus) and is truly competitive on a race track. But all would depend on how far the Ferrari technical team is able to build a car for both drivers and will it be able to match the current season front runners Mercedes, Williams and Red-Bull. If the answer is yes, expect more than just sparks both on and off the track and in the Ferrari paddock.
Questions to be answered
How will the pair fare on the competition meter and will it be like the two Mercedes this year? Who will be better Vettel or Raikkonen? Will Raikkonen get along with his buddy Vettel? These are some of the questions that can be asked at this juncture, but the answers to these questions will be known once the season gets over and teams and drivers are ready to roll at Albert Park, Australia in 2015. We can only imagine as to what could transpire between the badminton buddies.
