“We will stay friends” – Raikkonen on friendship with Vettel

Kimi Raikkonen has said that he doesn’t think his friendship with Sebastian Vettel will change after his switch with Charles Leclerc ended their four-year partnership at Ferrari which started in 2015 when Vettel joined the Scuderia from Red Bull.

The Finn made his last appearance for Ferrari in Abu Dhabi, before switching with Charles Leclerc and testing for Sauber after the race. He expects his friendship to stay the same Vettel regardless as to whether they are teammates or not as they have known each other a long time.

"I don’t think it has changed from when we met for the first time to today, so I don’t see why it is going to change anywhere even though we’re not racing in the same team.” (crash.net).

"We will stay friends, and I’m sure we’ll travel together sometimes and see each other."

"I’m sure we’re going to see each other often.”

Raikkonen’s replacement in Leclerc has been said to pose more of a change to Vettel than the Finn himself. But the German thinks it will be similar to his rivalry with his former teammate.

"I think we will be rivals as much as Kimi and myself are rivals. You always try to get first, and if you do that, you beat everybody else, also your teammate. We will see.”

"[Leclerc's] a good kid. I don’t expect there is anything wrong on-track, we also know we want to bring Ferrari back to winning ways. For him it’s obviously a different point in his career compared to mine, but I think time will tell. From what I know now and how I know him now, he seems like a good guy."