If any team made a huge change for this year’s Formula One World Championship, it was Scuderia Ferrari. Last year, everything went bad for the prancing horse as Stefano Dominicali was first ousted, and his replacement went the same way after a short term in office. Only a little while later, Luca Montemozolo, who had been president of the company since the years of Enzo Ferrari himself, departed following a presence of 28 years. To top things off even more, Fernando Alonso, the big hope of the team, departed for McLaren after serving with the Scuderia since 2010.
With all the changes now on the team, Ferrari ushered in a new era by launching their latest challenger, the SF15-T, from their headquarters online Friday in Marenello, Italy.
The only employee that still remains from the previous year’s debacle is Finn Kimi Raikkonen, who will drive his second and perhaps, last season in formula one. Replacing Alonso is four time world driving champion Sebastian Vettel who comes over from Red Bull Racing.
“It looks different and nice from last year’s car, and when it looks good, it should be a pretty good car.” Commented Raikkonen. “Obviously, we have to see how it is when we start testing, but it looks good.”
Vettel himself has not driven the car either, but he has good impressions about the SF15-T as his teammate does.
“It is a different color this year, but it is beautiful.” The German stated. “To see how it comes together every year is something special. You see the first piece, and then finally the entire car. I cannot wait to see how it feels when we go on track.”
Maurizio Arrivabene is now the team’s new sporting director, while James Allison, who came over from Lotus is now the technical director, And this car with its new front nose and pushrods, expects the new longer nose and tighter back end to conform to the year’s new rules.
“The back of the car is something which is noticeably different to the 2014 car because we’ve been successful in pulling the bodywork much tighter to all the stuff underneath the skin,” Allison said to ESPN F1.”That’s been done through a lot of work not only in the wind tunnel but also in the design part of the company to find radiator designs that were fundamentally more efficient. So for every square centimeter of radiator we are able to extract more cooling this year than last and able to close the car down at the back as a consequence.”
“Push-rod or pull-rod on the front has pros and cons either side. A pull-rod is probably harder to get light and stiff, but it’s probably a bit easier to get aerodynamic performance from, so it’s swings and roundabouts. It’s an area of the car that wasn’t felt to be a problem on last year’s car and therefore wasn’t an area that merited investment of effort this time round on the SF15-T.” He concluded.
Arrrivabene, like everyone else, has no idea how the car will run until this Sunday, but still likes the look of it.
“Enzo Ferrari said a long time ago that the best car is the winning car,” the new boss said. “Last year we had an ugly car and it was a non-winning car on top of this. I like the car of this year in terms of aesthetics, I don’t know about performance, but it’s really sexy.” “I’m just realistic. Nobody has the magic to change things when things are unchangeable. The car was ready actually in December this year and we applied certain modifications that in our opinion are quite interesting. With that I don’t want to say we are going to win the world championship, but for sure we are committed to win at least two races.”
If the Ferrari boss is right, then a new chapter will be fulfilled that will erase the previous one far behind and forgotten, and will head into the right direction.