Brundle: Kimi has reached the end of the road

Raikkonen won the Scuderia's last title back in 2007, he departed the sport in 2009 before returning with Lotus in 2012, two years later he returned to Ferrari but in the five seasons back at Maranello he has yet to win for the Reds again.

After the Canadian Grand Prix, where Raikkonen was comprehensively beaten in qualifying and then in the race by Vettel, Sky pundit and former F1 driver Martin Brundle wrote in his column, "Ferrari have to be concerned about Kimi."

"I know he's one of the most popular drivers around, but after another mistake in qualifying, he finished nearly 30 seconds behind his team-mate on Sunday."

"What are they going to do? In my view, Kimi has reached the end of the road. He still shows a flash of real speed from time to time but he can't relentlessly deliver the required race pace any more."

"Nor is he working as an effective rear-gunner to Seb. Winning the Constructors' Championship is super-important to Ferrari - they don't put the list of their titles on their road car dashboards for fun - and if they want to win it in this era against Red Bull or Mercedes they need a Ricciardo or a Leclerc alongside Vettel next year. And Vettel needs to deal with that."

To be fair, predicting Raikkonen's future in Formula 1 is an annual 'sport' among fans and pundits that plays prominently during the sports' infamous silly season.

Again this year, speculation about his future is a hot topic in the paddock. Talk is that Raikkonen will quit at the end of this season and return to a World Rally Championship (WRC) in 2019, a scenario which he has played down.

Nevertheless, Daniel Ricciardo's availability on the drivers' market and the emergence of Ferrari protege Charles Leclerc at Sauber has provided bosses at Maranello with some hard decisions to make in the near future.

Brundle continued, "Charles Leclerc looks the real deal to me. He is out-performing his Sauber car just like Alonso and Webber did in a Minardi, like Senna did in a Toleman and Schumacher in a Jordan. He stands out a mile and really impressed me a month ago in Spain when he didn't wilt with Fernando Alonso on his tail."

"He clearly has the head for F1, and he just looks like the complete package, even if his picture in the F1 grid graphics make him look like a startled Harry Potter."

"Ferrari don't often take risks on young drivers but there's a changing of the guard going on between generations - the field can be divided into three groups with the likes of Fernando and Kimi at one end, Grosjean and Hulkenberg in the middle ground, and a group of young fliers coming through - and Ferrari don't want to be caught out," warned Brundle.

After seven championship races, Raikkonen is trailing his teammate on all fronts. The Finn has only once outqualified Vettel in this campaign while the German has won three times. Raikkonen has yet to win this season, second place at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in April his best result so far.

Vettel leads the championship with 121 points while Raikkonen has only 68 points in fifth.