Vettel is modern-day Schumacher at Ferrari - Coulthard

Ferrari have given Sebastian Vettel the same top billing as Michael Schumacher enjoyed in his peerless domination of Formula 1. That's the view of former F1 driver David Coulthard, who revealed he was offered a deal to be Schumacher's team-mate on "number-two" terms during his career.

Vettel won two of the opening three races of the season in F1, with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen only able to secure a couple of third-place finishes in that time.

At the Chinese grand Prix, Raikkonen was left out on a mammoth opening stint, seen as an attempt to hold up Valtteri Bottas after the Mercedes had undercut Vettel in the pits.

Raikkonen says he has a chance of winning a second title in 2018, dismissing suggestions that he is merely number two to Vettel, but Coulthard says the Scuderia's situation mirrors that of the past.

"If you look at Michael Schumacher, he never had a controversial team-mate. I was offered a Ferrari contract and it was a number-two contract," Coulthard told Express Sport.

"Clearly, Michael was a better driver than me but I couldn't sign a number-two contract because you're committing yourself to that.

"Whereas Eddie Irvine was happy to sign it and milk it for all it was worth."

Raikkonen qualified on the front row in the opening three grands prix of 2018, his best qualifying run in 13 years and Coulthard does believe the Finn looks on form.

"In fairness to him, Kimi has delivered great speed in the first three grands prix but hasn't been lucky," Coulthard added.

"He'll win a grand prix this year and we'll all get tremendously excited about it and say 'oh he's one of the fans' favourites'.

"But he is the Joey Barton of F1. He's popular because he is anti-establishment rather than by being an outwardly nice individual. They come in all shapes and sizes.

"Vettel has consistently got the upper hand on him.

"When I was team-mates with Kimi, he consistently got the upper hand on me.

"With Mika [Hakkinen, McLaren team-mate], he consistently got the upper hand on me too! You may well have an equal contract but the results don't lie.

"It's no-one scheming against Kimi: the statistics show Vettel has scored more points than him."