Scuderia Ferrari uncover the F138

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February 1, 2013 by thedavidryan

Ferrari’s new F138 Prancing Horse revealed

Scuderia Ferrari have unveiled their 2013 Formula One contender, the F138, in a ceremony at their Italian control centre in Maranello.

As first glance the obvious changes to this year’s title challenger is the colour scheme. Gone is the traditional red and white paint layout in favour of including a black streak around the floor of the car, likely put in place to prevent certain eagled eyed teams trying to spy and copy elements of the new design.

With McLaren revealing at Thursday’s launch that they have altered their design philosophy to incorporate Ferrari used pullrods on the front of their new MP4-28 charger, Scuderia Ferrari confirmed that they will continue to use the system at both the front and the rear of the F138.

Ferrari returned the ‘borrowing’ favour by taking a leaf out of the McLaren book, as they have also included the more desirable smooth front nose, as a replacement from last year’s significantly loathed step nose front end. Described as an “evolution of the F2012 in terms of its basic design principals”, The Scuderia has modified almost every part in order to maximise performance for the forthcoming season.

The team clarified: ‘The bodywork elements have been redesigned to allow for changes to the positioning and layout of the exhausts. The dynamic air intake, mounted above the cockpit has been redesigned, as have been the intakes to the side pods, which in turn have also been optimised in aerodynamic terms, while maintaining unchanged the overall cooling system.

‘The rear of the car is much narrower and more tapered on the lower part. The configuration of the front and rear wings derives directly from the last versions used on the F2012, partly because development of that car ran all the way to the final race of last season.’

Having narrowly missed out to the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel last year, Fernando Alonso will be hoping his new Prancing Horse will have the legs to pip Vettel at the post this time round. Both he and Felipe Massa were on hand at Maranello to display the new Scuderia Ferrari in all its glory to the worlds press.

When asked about the 2012 season, Team Principal Stefano Domenicali admitted the bitter pill was still hard to swallow: “Coming second at the last race is always difficult, from an emotionally point it is very difficult.”

“But we have already forgotten that. This year we have begun improving on the reliability, the work of fine tuning, at the pit stops, these are the things that allow us to look forward to the new season which will be difficult.”

As usual don’t expect this unveiling to be the finished article come round one of the new season, the Scuderia were quick to assure additional ‘significant modifications’ to their latest charger over the coming weeks as the team bids to end a run of four years without a Formula One title.