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Arrivabene introduces 'sexy' Ferrari SF15-T - Vettel and Räikkönen settle in the new car

Published by Christine

A top down look at the new Ferrari SF15-T
Credit: Ferrari S.p.A.

In a season of dull silver and grey liveries, the familiar red of Scuderia Ferrari's new car is something of a relief. The SF15-T sports a red, white and black colour scheme, and have scattered their sponsor logos up and down the car. It's fun to spot the new Claro, Telcel and Telmex brands which moved across from Sauber along with reserve driver Esteban Gutiérrez.

The new bodywork gives us some better sculpting around the sidepods and a revised nose - the new front end much smoother than the previous hoover-style tip. That was a look I wasn't very fond of, and for a worrying moment it was thought they might be able to adapt the wide low nose to fit the 2015 regulations. For now, they've opted for a more traditional if elongated look, and new team principal Maurizio Arrivabene is very enamoured with the refreshed look.

Last year we had an ugly car and it was a non-winning car on top of this. I like the car this year in terms of the aesthetics. I don’t know about the performance, but it is really sexy.

- Maurizio Arrivabene, Team principal, Ferrari

The team have concentrated their attention on making the car more aerodynamically sound, and enabling better cooling to the power unit. They believe their work may gain them a couple of tenths of a second per lap. Improvements to the brake-by-wire system should also allow enhanced driver experience and thus better lap times too.

I really like this video, it ramps up the drama and gives you a good look at the car too. I'm not sure when it's going to stop looking odd seeing Sebastian Vettel in the red overalls, but that video definitely didn't help. He looks like he's trying on some dressing up box clothes!

The four times world champion is saying all the right things though, "It takes time to settle in, but I am confident we are going in the right direction. But it would be wrong to expect a lot of us." He says it will be something special to turn up to that first race as a Ferrari driver."

Kimi Räikkönen is eager to get going, after finally seeing the car in one piece. "It looks different to last year's car. From all the details, for me at least, it looks good. And usually when it looks good, it should be a pretty good car. We have to wait until we get testing and see how it is, but first impressions are good."

The new machinery will hit the track in Jerez for the first pre-season test which starts on Sunday.

Ferrari kept the SF15-T's diffuser out of sight
Credit: Ferrari S.p.A.

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