Vettel keen for Raikkonen to stay

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Sebastian Vettel says he wants Kimi Raikkonen to stay at Ferrari next season following speculation regarding his future.

Raikkonen said in Bahrain it is up to Ferrari whether he is retained for an extra year or not, with the team holding an option for 2016. With Valtteri Bottas having been linked with a move to Maranello as Raikkonen's replacement, Vettel says he wants his current team-mate to be retained.

"I don’t mind too much, obviously my contract is a little bit longer than Kimi’s contract but I think if he continues here it will be positive for the team because they know him from the time he was here before and over the past few years," Vettel said. "It is important that you work well together as a team and as far as those first couple of races have been that is the case for the both of us."

Looking at this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, Vettel is pinning his hopes on Ferrari's updates allowing it to close up even further on Mercedes.

"Well I hope everybody is right. We will wait and see what happens on Sunday. Barcelona historically has always been a place where teams have brought updates to its cars, sometimes bigger or smaller. We’ve probably done the same as everyone else but hopefully we’ll have a bigger update and a better lap time to catch up to the guys in front, Mercedes."

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