{"id":3854,"date":"2010-03-28T10:07:54","date_gmt":"2010-03-28T14:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/formula-1\/raikkonen-to-partner-vettel-at-red-bull-in-2011-report\/"},"modified":"2010-03-28T10:08:43","modified_gmt":"2010-03-28T14:08:43","slug":"raikkonen-to-partner-vettel-at-red-bull-in-2011-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/raikkonen-to-partner-vettel-at-red-bull-in-2011-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Raikkonen to partner Vettel at Red Bull in 2011 &#8211; report"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Kimi Raikkonen is set to replace Red Bull&#8217;s Mark Webber ahead of the 2011 season.<\/span><\/h5>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>A report in Germany&#8217;s Bild am Sonntag said the return of the Finn to formula one, to become his friend Sebastian Vettel&#8217;s teammate, is already being arranged.<\/p>\n<p>Raikkonen, 30, is already under contract to the energy drinks company, having switched from Ferrari to world rallying for 2010 with the Red Bull-funded Citroen Junior Team.<\/p>\n<p>RBR team boss Christian Horner recently admitted that hiring Raikkonen for 2011 is an &#8220;interesting idea&#8221;, and speculation about Webber&#8217;s expiring contract was re-fired this weekend when Lewis Hamilton tipped the Australian to retire.<\/p>\n<p>Horner said on Saturday: &#8220;We are very happy with our drivers.\u00a0 Mark is driving very well, and he is not old, as Michael has demonstrated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The average age (of F1 drivers) has dropped, but as long as Mark is motivated, competitive and quick, I don&#8217;t think that he has any thoughts of stopping just yet.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Vettel told Bild am Sonntag: &#8220;Kimi and I are good friends, but in the end I don&#8217;t care who sits in the other car because I still have to beat him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He would not confirm that the Raikkonen deal is close to being finalised.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know what the team is planning.\u00a0 And in the end, it is of course Kimi&#8217;s decision.\u00a0 He needs to see how he feels.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #999999;\">\u00a9 RIF|GMM<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kimi Raikkonen is set to replace Red Bull&#8217;s Mark Webber ahead of the 2011 season. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[128,5262,5261,5340,152,165,129],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3855,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854\/revisions\/3855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}