Raikkonen hints he wants 2019 deal

Very much so. Now I like Vettel, but just steamroll him, and pick whichever driver you want, Ferrari, not the best number 2 driver for any of F1's 2 biggest current divas.

I am not a fan of Rai, but let me point this out : it is not his face or his demeanor that has changed over time but your perception, rather. As far as ferrari goes, again, please don't follow this cliche 'merican thing - don't be this reactionary. They knew, each year, that they had deficient machinery. Recall the usual Dominicali. His non-changing reaction to every non-eventful, mediocre race(which were majority): "we need to calm down, we will look at things, learn and it is what it is". This was his response to every race in the years when Ferrari where nowhere - RB were beating them everytime. Recall those days when Vetter was at RB. So, then, Ferrari knew that with their car no matter what driver pairing they would have, they would not win. Yes, ferrari are not fastest or smartest when it comes to making time-sensitive, administrative decisions (like RB is for instance), but they are robust and risk averse - they filter out hysterisis, if you will, they don't do knee-jerk reactions when it comes to driver decisions. So to sum it up : over their non-competitive years, their drivers didn't matter one bit wrt to getting titles. Now, as far as their policy of getting two competitive drivers. They might. But, they, ferrari that is, treat drivers as disposable material - the team comes first. So, if one of the drivers needs to be sacrificed for "the championship" there is no question of "if" - it will be done without any hesitation. No matter if it would be soul destroying for that driver - they will do it. Usually, their #1 policy for the season is decided early on, like first 3 or 4 races decide who is #1 and who is to be #2. Usually, #2 is fucked over for the rest of the season. And, the next season, if the #2 doesn't show the speed by outperforming #1 in first two! races, he is deemed to be #2 even sooner than in the first year. So, ferrari have a tendency of making #2 drivers even from perfectly good #1 drivers, if they are unlucky somewhat. Also, none of ferrari drivers were very bad! Massa for instance is as good as Vandoorne for instance. Who is on avg 0.3 seconds slower than Alo. And Vandoorne was winning all the junior categories dominantly, that is, he must be quite competent driver. Recall how massa fared against stroll : he beat him badly. Stroll who is not given any credit, was some sort of a champion as well. Stroll is beating Sirotkin who was also displaying some credible racing in his past. So, Massa, the eternal #2 at ferrari, except for an odd season, was perfectly good and fast driver. Kimi, is also good - he is not too far from Vettel. Kimi quite often chokes when it matters, but speedwise he is as close to Vettel as say Webber was. And Webber was quite a qualifier. He is about 2 tenths down on vettel on avg. So, Kimi is stil a fast guy. Bare in mind that Vettel is probably fastest qulifier in F1. Surprisingly, Alonso was quite a margin faster than Kimi, and this margin was bigger than the one between Rai and Vettel, but that might have been because of the particular car they had which indeed was not to Rai's liking. So, Kimi would probably beat half the field in equal machinery - he will be on the level of perez/ocon/hulk/sainz, if not better. He will beat grosjean/mag/hartley/gasly/leclerc/eri. So, ferrari are quite rational when it comes to selecting their drivers. They need a fast and stable guy who will galvanize the team around him - it can be anyone, as long as he is rather fast. The second guy can be anyone as well. In other words, my point here is : put equally good two drivers into the team and ferrari will make one of them a #1 and the other #2. And that will be decided in the first two seasons of the pairing and this order will probably last as long as they will be driving for ferrari. The drivers are not a problem at ferrari - it is their cars. They suck most of the time. RB were beating them. Now it is Mercedes that is beating them. Ferrari are the default benchmark to beat - they are a safe and conservative, risk-averse team. They are mediocre on every level. They are not best at anything really. Except their reliability. And there you have it. Ferrari suck. They are not RB, who happen to have a really good aerodynamist. They are not the engine-gurus : merc hit gold buying out what they now call AMG HPP - Cowell and co. Ferrari can only beat other mediocre teams like force india, mclaren(sadly they are not a top team any more), renault, willams(for historical reasons this is a team I consider a mid-table team, although they are at the bottom now).

@APJ Does it? Remember, this is Ferrari we are talking about, and this is the way they've always done things.

That aside, we might have a record for longest post ever on f1today.net!

@Mr. Useless, I agree with you that the team must come first in terms of decisions made as to driver order on track, the problem is that Raikkonen’s on track position is being sacrificed in favour of Vettel, not the team, such as in instances when Raikkonen is used to back up the field in order to allow Vettel to catch up, with Vettel then allowed past.

I agree with @AJP, Raikkonen was once entertaining, however now is becoming trying. His lack of emotion on the podium and in the interview pen is just blahhhh, give me someone who is enthusiastic, passionate and genuinely exuberant for F1 anyday!!

@Mr.Useless - I find myself agreeing with everything you say - except you talk of Vettel as being the faster qualifier - I don't think that's right. Its impossible to be 100% confident in this - would Max beat Vettel in similar machinery, and once you have settled that one - who would beta Hamilton - on his day unbeatable (not my words, the words of many ex and current F1 drivers).

Back to Rai - I don't necessarily agree he's boring for F1 - he brings mystique and for sure he's different - 'one-man' - hardly supposed to be explosive is he?

I meant 'ice-man ' !!