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Sebastian Vettel says he is happy to fight teammate Kimi Raikkonen until the end of the year and isn't interested in using team orders to win the title. Vettel is going head-to-head with rival Lewis Hamilton for the 2018 world championship, as they did one year ago.
The pair clashed on the opening lap of the Italian Grand Prix last weekend, which caused Vettel to spin around and join the back of the field. As he recovered his way to finish in fourth place, Hamilton and Raikkonen had a closely fought battle for the lead, in which the Briton came out on top.
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Raikkonen hasn't won a race this season (nor has he since he re-joined Ferrari in 2014), but the Finn grabbed pole position on Saturday for the race at Monza, ahead of Vettel. With Mercedes indicating that it will use team orders to aid Hamilton, Vettel says that he doesn't see a need for them at Ferrari.
“Obviously I can see the questions coming up, but for me it's pretty clear: I'm happy to fight three cars, I'm happy to actually fight 19 cars,” he said. "I think I've never been in a different position to that. That's fine. I don't expect anything else."
Speaking about his clash with Hamilton on lap 1, the German added: "I think we are old enough and we don't need to go through the start. I'm doing my job and I'm prepared to race everybody.
"I was trying to use my chances in the first corner, a little bit in the second chicane, but it didn't work. Then it was a bit unfortunate with how things turned out. Everybody's free to have whatever approach they want. But for us, it's pretty clear and straightforward."
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The difference being Bottas shows little sign of beating Hamilton in a race. Mercy are doing it right and Bottas needs to win races in order to cement his own right for team orders to benefit him. Team orders now are inevitable, merc is the slower car to Ferrari and orders represent the best wa... [Read more]