New Ferrari to be launched on 3 February

The car with which Ferrari will tackle the 2012 Formula 1 World Championship will be presented to the media and the team partners at the Fiorano track on 3 February. The announcement was made this morning by Scuderia Team Principal, Stefano Domenicali, during a press conference at Wrooom, the event that kicks off the Prancing Horse’s race season.

“As has been the case for many years now it will be a very conventional ceremony,” said Domenicali. “If the weather is good enough, right from the afternoon of the third, or more likely the following day, the car will run at Fiorano to fulfill some promotional obligations, before tackling its first real test at Jerez de la Frontera on 7 February.”

New arrivals at Maranello

As had been hinted at during the usual pre-Christmas meeting with the media, a few additions have been made to the Scuderia structure and there have also been some changes made within its organisation.

The most significant were set out this morning by Stefano Domenicali during his meeting with the media: “From the 2 January, Steve Clark joins us from Mercedes to work as a track engineer, while also joining Ferrari is Hiroide Hamashima, previously Technical Director at Bridgestone Motorsport. He will head up a new project focusing on an in-depth assessment of an area crucial to performance, which is the interaction between the car and its tyres and he will also be our technical link to Pirelli. Both men will report to Technical Director, Pat Fry.”

Ferrari has always applied technology transfer between race track and road, making it one of its strong points and part of this has also involved movement in both directions in terms of personnel. This explains Marco Fainello’s move to the Technical Direction of the Gestione Industriale, where he takes on an important role in the area of simulation.