One F1 champion "would have won more" if they had Michael Schumacher's work ethic

Former F1 driver David Coulthard believes 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen “would have won more” if he had Michael Schumacher’s work ethic.

Raikkonen won his only F1 world title with Ferrari in 2007 - his first year with the team after replacing Schumacher.

The Finn remains Ferrari’s most recent world champion, with the likes of Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel failing to get over the line in the last 15 years.

Raikkonen narrowly missed out on the 2003 title with McLaren, while in 2005, poor reliability allowed Alonso to take his first title with Renault.

Speaking on The Red Flags podcast, Coulthard thinks his former teammate should have had more success in F1.

“He’s the outlier in all of that. He was just a great, natural talent,” Coulthard said of Raikkonen.

“He went from Formula Renault to driving a Sauber at Mugello. Mugello is one of the proper scary race tracks you can go round in a grand prix car. He just had so much talent.

“But can you imagine? He won one world championship and you could go McLaren reliability and all that stuff. If he had the work ethic of Michael, I think he would have won more.”

During his championship-winning years with Ferrari, Schumacher was renowned for his work ethic and ability to bring a team together.

Coulthard acknowledged the impact Schumacher had “over engineers and mechanics” by being ingrained at the Ferrari factory. 

“Michael was at the test track, he was at the factory,” he added. “If you’re there standing over engineers and mechanics, they feel it, it empowers them.

“You are the fuel that helps drive them forward.

“So I say this: I stand by work ethic. It’s the difference between being a humble one-time world champion, or what he could have been – a multiple world champion.”