Ferrari

The Malaysian Grand Prix has almost always seemed to play an important role in the career of Fernando Alonso.

The Spaniard claimed his first Formula One pole position at the Sepang circuit in 2003 before claiming his first of three wins at the track two years later—a result that elevated Alonso to the top of drivers’ standings for the first time in his championship-winning season.

His second-place finish in 2006 provided the perfect springboard for a streak of five wins from the next seven races, as Alonso conquered Michael Schumacher to win his second world title in as many years.

In 2007, Alonso took an assured debut win for McLaren to kick-start a season that saw him lose the title to Kimi Raikkonen by a single point.

It was a matter of small margins again in 2010 when Alonso’s Ferrari suffered a broken clutch, which led to handling problems. He later retired with an engine failure from ninth on the penultimate lap of the race at the beginning of a season which ended with the Spaniard missing out on the championship to Sebastian Vettel by four points.

The following year, Alonso was in contention for a podium finish, but a collision with Lewis Hamilton left him in sixth with a 30-point deficit to Vettel after only the second race of the season.

Alonso recovered well in 2012 to secure what was arguably the finest grand prix victory of his career with an opportunistic drive in wet conditions. The rain proved to be his downfall last year, however, when he tagged Vettel at the start and retired from the race on the second lap after his front wing lodged underneath the Ferrari chassis.

His 2013 title challenge—due to his and Ferrari’s decision to soldier on with a wonky front wing—was over before it had even begun.

Maybe it’s down to the sweltering heat and draining humidity that makes the event so unique, but the Malaysian Grand Prix always seems to have some kind of effect on Alonso. Formula One’s arrival in Kuala Lumpur can either bring out the most thrilling or clumsiest aspects of his driving.

Perhaps it is no coincidence, though, that Alonso’s most unfortunate and error-strewn performances in Sepang have occurred in the period since he joined Ferrari at the beginning of 2010.

The Italian team’s failure to provide Alonso with a pace-setting car, as well as their development disadvantage compared to their rivals due to an unreliable wind tunnel, has placed an emphasis on getting early points on the board in recent years.

Giving the likes of Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren—Ferrari’s main rivals—something to think about aligns well with Alonso, who is no stranger to mind games and is regarded as the most political driver on the grid. Yet that desperation to make an early statement of intent has seen Alonso cross what can be a very fine line between brilliant and barmy.

And despite Ferrari’s wind tunnel now operating optimally, correlating with data taken from the track, the team’s deficit in performance—as we identified following the Australian Grand Prix—remains a concern.

Those concerns were summed up by technical director James Allison, who referred to the team’s double-points finish in Melbourne as “unacceptable” when he told Sky Sports:

While we can take some satisfaction from the reliability shown by the F14T, it is clear that we have our work cut out to improve our car in order to compete on equal terms with the Mercedes team.

There is plenty about the F14T that is working very well: The starts and the pace in the corners - especially the high speed ones - are particular strong points, but we need to work further on the stability under braking and the speed on the straights.

If a lack of speed on the straights hurt Ferrari in Melbourne—which was alarmingly evident when Alonso found himself stuck behind the Mercedes-powered Force India of Nico Hulkenberg despite benefitting from DRS—the problem is almost certain to be magnified in Malaysia. While Albert Park is street circuit-like in nature, Sepang is defined by two long straights and is more representative of the style of track that makes up the majority of the F1 calendar.  

With that logic, Ferrari’s disappointing yet not entirely surprising results of fifth place for Alonso and eighth for Raikkonen in Australia (which became fourth and seventh respectively following Daniel Ricciardo’s disqualification) actually flattered the Prancing Horse.

After all, had the three Mercedes-powered cars of Felipe Massa, Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton not suffered from technical problems and/or external factors such as the wet qualification session and on-track collisions in Melbourne, Ferrari might have found themselves on the fringes or even outside of the top 10.

With rain, F1’s great leveller, forecast for the Malaysian Grand Prix, however, the team could yet have more time to play with to fix their problems and fight for the 2014 title on even ground. In Alonso, Ferrari have the perfect lead driver to eke the most out of any opportunity and keep their prospects alive for as long as possible.

But with the Mercedes works team a class above the field and the German manufacturer’s customer teams packing quite a punch, Ferrari must register a victory sooner rather than later if they are to mount a genuine challenge this season.

And what better place to return to the top step of the podium than the scene of their superstar’s greatest triumph and the home of Petronas, Mercedes’ title sponsors?

Alonso might just be the one to watch in Sepang.

Judging by the current noises coming out of the Ferrari garage, the team is certainly not where they hoped they would be after the opening grand prix of the season.

After an encouraging pre-season testing where they racked up the third-highest combined mileage of any team, Ferrari endured a disappointing Australian Grand Prix in which both drivers suffered issues before Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen finished a revised fourth and seventh respectively.

Worse still for Ferrari, Mercedes not only already look ominously quick but also reliable, Lewis Hamilton’s retirement notwithstanding. The Silver Arrows already have an edge of around a second a lap advantage over their closest rivals, and that isn’t even Ferrari.

It appears a familiar story for Ferrari. Only the brilliance of Fernando Alonso has masked the team’s deficiencies over recent years. The Spaniard took the title down to the wire in both 2010 and 2012 where he dragged performances from the car that it had no right to achieve.

You have to cast your mind back to 2007 for Ferrari's last championship win, when Kimi Raikkonen ambushed the McLarens of Hamilton and Alonso to creep under the radar and snatch the title by a solitary point. Even then, nobody could have said that the F2007 was a better car than the MP4-22.

So when did Ferrari last produce the best car on the grid? There is no question that, from 2000-2004, the combination of Michael Schumacher and Ferrari was an unstoppable combination, and Ferrari had an unstoppable car, especially in 2002 and 2004 when Rubens Barrichello was the runner-up.

Yet it is my contention that the last time that Ferrari enjoyed the luxury of having the best machine in the field, it was not a Ferrari driver who took the championship.

The season was 2006 and again the title went down to the wire, this time between Schumacher and Alonso. With only two rounds remaining, Schumacher and Alonso were level on points with the German having won one more race.

But for a late engine failure in Japan and an issue in qualifying in the final round in Brazil, surely Schumacher would have retired with one more title under his belt.

So why was the Ferrari 248F1 a better car than the Renault R26? It’s true that both were reliable, with both only suffering four retirements between their drivers over the course of the season. And it was Renault, not Ferrari who clinched the constructors’ title.

It was Alonso, at the end of the day, who made the difference. One title already under his belt, the Spaniard proved fast and consistent over the course of the season whilst Schumacher’s powers were on the wane. Uncharacteristic crashes in Australia and Hungary ultimately cost the German another title, and it was no surprise when he called it a day at the end of the year.

It has also been argued that Renault enjoyed the advantage of the superior Michelin tyre during both the 2005 and 2006 seasons, although that is a point of contention that has produced much debate.

What is for certain is that Ferrari already faces a massive challenge in 2014 if they are even to get close to matching the success of 2006. Even at this early stage, it appears likely that the Scuderia will miss out on both drivers’ and constructors’ titles.

But this time they will have the excuse of not having the best car.

Ferrari have never been in Formula One to make up the numbers.

They exist to win. They hire the best drivers they can, have a budget which is second-to-none, own extensive state-of-the-art facilities and possess a workforce brimming with brilliant, talented people.

So there will be many heavy hearts and pained expressions as the team head to Malaysia. It seems the F14T is just another in a long line of disappointing cars.

All throughout winter, it was difficult to see exactly how the Italian team matched up to their rivals. Deliberately low-key and unobtrusive, Ferrari did their own thing.

Mercedes received the positive headlines, Renault the negative. Ferrari received no headlines at all.

Many, including former driver Mika Salo, were convinced they were "sandbagging"—going deliberately slowly to deceive their rivals.

He told Finnish radio station Nova (h/t Motorsport.com):

When you look at the sector times for the tests, some are very good but some are ridiculously bad. They are covering up their pace and no one really knows where they are.

Well, now we do know where they are. And signs are not good.

Where the Scuderia Stands

It's difficult to put a figure on the advantage Mercedes have over a single lap. Fernando Alonso's best time in free practice (one minute, 30.132 seconds) was eight-tenths of a second slower than the best time set by Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes.

But practice isn't a reliable indicator of much, and we can't really use qualifying to glean any information, as the weather intervened.

Comparing race pace is easier. In 2013 this was Ferrari's forte—they'd qualify poorly, then make up places in the race.

This table shows the lap times set by Rosberg, Alonso and Ricciardo in the crucial five-lap period immediately after their second stops (information from the FIA):

All were in clean air, with no cars less than three seconds ahead.

We can see the gap to Ricciardo was in the order of half a second. The gap to Rosberg, who was probably pushing less than either man, was around a second.

That's bad enough, but then add in the driver factor. With respect to Rosberg and Ricciardo, Alonso is better than both. Yet he was still that much slower.

But maybe we expected those two cars to be quicker. What about the Williams and McLaren?

Here's the same comparison, looking at Alonso alongside the McLaren of Kevin Magnussen and the Williams of Valtteri Bottas.

It was closer but there's still a gap, and these two were in dirty air for all or some of those five laps.

And that's Alonso's Ferrari. Kimi Raikkonen was even further down the road.

The tables show a snapshot, but the picture was the same all race. Ferrari appeared to have the fifth-best car in Australia.

Looking Ahead

A few decades ago, starting the year with the fifth-fastest car, a second off the pace, might not have been such a bad thing. A few changes to the setup might solve the problems, or maybe it was a track that didn't suit the car and tyres.

In 1998, Mika Hakkinen won as McLaren lapped the field at the opening round in Australia. Two races later, Ferrari's Michael Schumacher won the Argentine Grand Prix by more than 20 seconds from Hakkinen.

But swings like that don't happen these days. There's only one tyre supplier for starters, and technology has improved to such a degree that a near-perfect setup is known before the teams even get to the venue.

All the cars have such carefully crafted aerodynamics that even substantial changes rarely give gains of more than a few tenths.

The exception is when a specific aerodynamic innovation gives a massive advantage, like the Brawn double-diffuser in 2009.

That isn't the case today. One cannot point to a single external reason which explains why the Ferrari is not as quick as the Mercedes. There will be bits and pieces here and there, but the Ferrari is an aerodynamically sound car.

Internally, it's a different matter.

A large contributor to the gap between the two appears to be down the power unit.

Rumours and paddock talk, such as this piece by Sky Sports, say the Ferrari engine is less powerful, less drivable and less fuel efficient than the Mercedes.

Speed trap data backs this up to a degree. Ferrari, Sauber and Marussia were substantially slower than the teams they would expect to be fighting.

And Alonso was stuck behind Nico Hulkenberg's Force India for more than 20 laps, clearly faster but unable to pass even with the benefit of DRS.

Making changes here is difficult, because performance-enhancing development to the power units was banned at the end of February. Changes can be made to improve fuel economy, reliability and cost—but Mercedes can make those changes too.

As can Renault.

It could be that Melbourne was an anomaly and Ferrari aren't as slow as they seem, but there's no evidence to back that up. It's more likely that the picture from Australia will be repeated in Malaysia and throughout the rest of the season.

That would make it six years since Ferrari produced a great car. For a team with their budget, history and personnel, that's just not good enough.

And for Alonso and Raikkonen—two men running out of time to claim more world titles—it would be a disaster.

Follow @NeilJamesF1

Anyone who saw Kimi Raikkonen burst onto the Formula One scene in 2001 knew they were witnessing the arrival of someone very special.

He scored a point in his first race and showed more than a few flashes of brilliance throughout the course of the season. McLaren recognised his talent and after just one year in the midfield he had one of the most sought-after drives on the grid.

Packing at least as much natural talent as any driver of his generation, Raikkonen took to the front of the field like a duck to water. Two years after his debut, he was firmly established as one of the best drivers in F1.

Few people back then would have believed that, come 2014, he'd have just a single world championship to his name.

But that's exactly the position Raikkonen finds himself in today, for his is a story of criminally unfulfilled, even wasted, potential.

Most of the blame for this lies with his teams. In his 11 years of competing, Raikkonen has had a championship-worthy car on just four occasions—and he's never had a car which stood out as the clear best of the field.

It's difficult to say how much blame should be placed upon his own shoulders, because it's impossible to judge what impact his famously laid-back attitude has had on his career.

But what we can say is that this has been an era in which focused, dedicated and studious drivers—like Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel—have overwhelmingly come out on top. So it may be fair to say his approach hasn't helped.

His liking of a drink and a party has also come under scrutiny. This video shows perhaps his most famous drunken misadventure:

Fortunately, Raikkonen had enough talent to get away with it.

The Finn's first shot at the title came in 2003, his third season. He drove well enough to have been champion in a McLaren which was, on balance, probably the equal of Michael Schumacher's Ferrari. The German took the title by two points.

Raikkonen should have won his first championship in 2005. He was by far the most impressive driver but woeful reliability and numerous grid penalties for engine changes handed the championship to Fernando Alonso.

A move to Ferrari in 2007 saw his luck change. In a season dominated by the Spygate scandal, Raikkonen benefited from a late-season slump from Lewis Hamilton and McLaren to claim the title by a single point.

The outlook moving forward was positive, then everything went wrong.

In 2008 his Ferrari was, by a small margin, the best car. But Raikkonen was, by a significant margin, the most disappointing driver.

He was out-performed by teammate Felipe Massa, who until that time had looked like a capable No. 2 and nothing more. It was the Brazilian who took the title fight to the final race, while Raikkonen seemed destabilised by rumours linking Alonso to his seat.

It wasn't that he'd lost pace. That was still there, evidenced by Raikkonen's habit of randomly setting fastest laps toward the end of races. You could almost hear him saying, "Hey guys, this is how fast I could have gone all race if I'd wanted to."

He set the fastest lap in 10 of the 18 races.

His bosses at Ferrari were less than amused, but Raikkonen had a long-term contract and they stuck with him in 2009. Sadly, his heart never seemed fully in it, and Ferrari paid him off to not drive for them in 2010.

Raikkonen took a break from F1 and a return did not seem likely.

But return he did, signing to drive for Lotus in 2012. Adapting instantly to the new car, he was on the pace right from the off and finished third in the drivers' championship. Raikkonen reeled off a record 27 points finishes, including victory in Abu Dhabi.

He won the opening race of the 2013 season and would have claimed third in the championship again, but he missed the final two races of the season to have back surgery.

This was the season in which Sebastian Vettel won his fourth consecutive world championship, prompting some to call him an all-time great.

Others disagreed, and the age-old debate of what truly constitutes "greatness" in F1 was re-opened.

Is it the number of championships, or how the championships are won? Magical race performances, or brilliant one-off qualifying runs? Natural talent, or how the talent is applied?

The answer is that it lies in all of those things and more. Numbers, style and, above all, performances combine to place a driver among the all-time greats.

And 2014 is Raikkonen's final chance to join them.

The Finn is now 34, and coming towards the end of his F1 career. After two seasons with a smaller team, he's back with the biggest of them all, Ferrari, for what will probably be his final two years.

Standing in his way is the man who, without realising it, cost him his first F1 career. Fernando Alonso is considered by many to be the benchmark driver of today, and Raikkonen is walking into his team.

It's testament to his ability that he's even being given a cat in hell's chance of coming out on top, but that is exactly what he needs to do.

And in one of the next two years, he has to beat everyone else as well.

To be remembered as a great, Raikkonen has to banish the ghosts of 2008 and claim a second world championship. If his career ends with just one title from 13 attempts, the record books will soon forget the close calls and magnificent drives.

They'll mostly talk about wasted potential and missed opportunities. Adding a second title would change that.

It doesn't have to come in 2014, but this is the year that matters. If he can establish himself at Ferrari as, at the very least, Alonso's equal, he'll enter 2015 with the confidence and status to mount a serious challenge.

And if the Spaniard departs at the end of the year, Ferrari will probably sign him a "helper" for 2015.

But if he finds himself playing No. 2 to Alonso, Raikkonen's head will drop. If this happens—and we saw it before, in 2008—he'll almost certainly be a No. 2 for the remainder of his Ferrari career.

Thirty years from now, Kimi Raikkonen will be remembered as one of two things. A hugely gifted driver who never quite fulfilled his limitless potential; or a brilliant all-time great with multiple titles to his name.

There'll be no grey area; it will be one or the other.

And this season will go a long way to determining which.

Follow @NeilJamesF1

Formula One preseason testing has reached its halfway mark. Six days have been completed and only six remain before the first race weekend of the year in Australia.

Renault's many woes have dominated the headlines, while Mercedes-powered cars have been claiming more positive plaudits.

But what about Ferrari?

The apparent progress of F1's longest-serving and most famous constructor is usually one of the main talking points of any preseason. But in 2014 they seem to have slipped under the radar.

What's really happening behind those red privacy screens?

Quick Technical Run-Through

The Ferrari design is somewhat unusual.

The nose, which has been likened to a porpoise or vacuum cleaner, slopes down dramatically to a wide front cross-section.

Only Mercedes went with a similar solution.

This sort of design brings benefits in the form of greater front downforce levels, but has a negative impact on the airflow under the car. This, in theory, reduces the amount of downforce generated at the rear.

But the sidepod design may make up for this. The cooling inlets and pods themselves are noticeably smaller than those of the Mercedes- and Renault-powered cars.

Not only does this help in sweeping good, clean air back to the diffuser, it also suggests the Ferrari powertrain has a lower cooling requirement than the Mercedes or Renault.

It's a bold and confident choice, and if it works it will pay dividends.

But perhaps they've gone too conservative elsewhere. The front wing in particular is rather basic when you look at the more elaborate designs of their rivals.

And overall, compared to the McLaren, for example, the current F14T looks unrefined and simple.

Testing Review

Like the Mercedes-powered teams, Ferrari have put plenty of laps on the board. Over the four days at Jerez they did 251, and in just two days at Bahrain their total is 161.

The team have been more focused on longer stints and aerodynamic testing. Though no attention has been paid to one-off glory runs, the F14T has always been close to the top of time sheets.

But there's always someone quicker and figures from Jerez suggest Ferrari weren't pushing as hard as some others.

According to Grandprix247, (h/t to AMUS) the Ferrari was 18 kilometres an hour slower than the Mercedes-powered Williams at each of the circuit's two speed traps.

Sandbagging, or just slower?

Deliberate Misdirection

It's impossible to say, and that seems to be a recurring theme with Ferrari this winter.

We can look at McLaren and say they look strong. The same can be said for Mercedes. Williams look better than they did, while Red Bull are struggling.

But Ferrari? Very hard to say.

More than any other team, the Italians appear to be operating in a quiet and mysterious fashion. The messages being put out on Twitter and in statements on their website talk of their programme and of understanding the car, but are neither positive or negative.

And when their drivers appear in press conferences, they don't say a lot either.

The shroud of mystery seems intentional and a departure from the bullish comments usually bandied around at this time of the year.

Educated guessing and gut feeling suggests Ferrari are a bit behind Mercedes and McLaren in terms of absolute performance.

But maybe that's just what they want us to think.

Formula One without Ferrari would be like Major League Baseball without the New York Yankees or the English Premier League without Manchester United. Ferrari is the sport's most prestigious team, having won the most races and championships, by far.

Since 1950, the inaugural season of the F1 World Championship, Ferrari has used its privileged status to exact concessions from the sport's organisers. (And it really has happened since 1950—the Ferrari team did not show up for the first championship race in a dispute over the start money, according to James Allen.)

Generally, the FIA (the sport's governing body) and F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone have fallen over themselves to placate the Maranello-based team.

But are those compromises necessary? What if we flipped the proposition: What would Ferrari be like without F1?

Sure, the Italian company would still make and sell fancy, exceedingly expensive sports cars. It would not, however, possess the allure and stature that comes from more than 60 years of success at the pinnacle of motorsport.

In 1977, founder Enzo Ferrari told Car's Keith Botsford, "The racing cars are our most effective way of making the Ferrari way known, and selling what we produce." The company is built to race.

And, without its F1 triumphs, Ferrari would probably not be the most powerful brand in the world, as it was named by Brand Finance in 2013. 

Yet there is a perpetual fear in F1, stoked by Ferrari's periodic sabre-rattling, that the Italian constructors will withdraw from the championship if this or that new regulation is not to their liking.

This fear has allowed Ferrari to build a list of benefits that its rivals are not privy to. These include a special payment from the F1 prize fund, and vetoes on Ecclestone's successor and on changes to the sport's technical regulations. 

In 2007, then-FIA president Max Mosley was asked in an interview with the official F1 website whether Ferrari was more important than the sport's other teams. Mosley responded:

Yes, firstly, because it holds a historically important position, as the team has been involved in Formula One since 1950. ... But should we find it necessary to impose our technical or sporting regulations, than Ferrari is treated like any other team. Should we find irregularities on a Ferrari—like the moveable floor after the Australian Grand Prix—it is removed and banned.

Of course, we now know that Ferrari is not treated like every other team. But Mosley's comments hint at another complaint of Ferrari's rivals: Aside from the explicit privileges accorded to the Italian team, there has often been the feeling that Ferrari has received favourable treatment at specific races or when judgements need to be made by the FIA on a particular issue.

A few examples: In 2006, the FIA was forced to deny allegations by Renault team principal Flavio Briatore that it was assisting Ferrari by banning an aerodynamic device on the Renault cars. Then, in 2008, similar complaints were voiced by McLaren when Lewis Hamilton retroactively lost his victory at the Belgian Grand Prix for cutting a chicane. The FIA again denied any favouritism.

Earlier this month, Ecclestone told City A.M. that the controversial new double-points rule has been introduced to help Ferrari. How the rule specifically helps Ferrari is quite beyond me, but the fact that the F1 CEO is openly trying to help one of the teams is simply ridiculous.

To go back to the original analogy, can you imagine English Premier League CEO Richard Scudamore announcing a rule change to benefit just one of the league's teams? Exactly.

Ferrari is not going anywhere. Its threats are designed to provoke a specific reaction—a particular benefit for the team. As recently as 2009, the Italian team threatened to quit over the imposition of a budget cap. The idea was scrapped at the time, but has been resurrected for 2015, so far without any Ferrari ultimatums.

However, we should still expect future bluffs from Ferrari. They have worked well for the team, so why change the strategy?

As long as F1's organisers demonstrate that they will give in to the slightest pressure from Maranello, Ferrari should continue to push for every advantage it can get. The only way it might stop is if all the other teams band together to oppose Ferrari's privileges. Unfortunately, the teams can rarely agree on what day of the week it is, let alone something important, so good luck with that.

Follow Matthew Walthert on Twitter @MatthewWalthert

When Ferrari unveiled the new F14 T, it was met with no shortage of criticism for its interpretation of the new aerodynamic regulations—a drastically-sloping front end that bears resemblance to a vacuum cleaner.

And once the new car hit the circuit for the first time, things didn’t get much better with Kimi Raikkonen immediately grinding to a halt on the back straight to bring out the first red flag of the session.

But as has always been the case in pre-season testing for as long as one can remember, mileage is king.

And with the radical new engine regulations in place for the 2014 season, racking up miles on the clock in testing is more important than ever before with reliability set to be the defining factor for the new season.

Ferrari immediately went to work on fixing the problem and by the end of the opening day, Raikkonen had clocked up the most laps of any driver and backed it up with 47 more trouble-free laps of running on day 2.

Local hero Fernando Alonso took over duties for the remaining two days and was on the pace immediately, setting the fastest time before parking up on the back section of the circuit and bringing out the red flags. Problem fixed, Ferrari again racked up substantial mileage with Alonso only four laps shy of Lewis Hamilton’s 62 at close of play.

And the Spaniard brought to an end a highly-encouraging four days of testing by completing more mileage than any other driver on the final day with 115 trouble-free laps of running and second only to Nico Rosberg over the entire test.

Miles on the clock means more data gathered and Ferrari is confident that they are already in better shape at the same point in time than recent seasons.

Much of this has been put down to a new upgrade in the team’s Maranello windtunnel that was closed for improvements at the end of 2012. As reported by Autosport, the new windtunnel has been up and running since October and team boss Stefano Domenicali told Ferrari’s official website that the data gathered at the facility is now correlating to the performance shown on the track.

These were four very demanding and important days to give us something to work on over the coming days in Maranello. The technical parameters of the F14 T, as well as the aerodynamic validation we saw on track, match our expectations and provide a solid starting point, which we must now exploit as much as possible. In Jerez, we concentrated our efforts on fine tuning the new systems to ensure that all the components that make up the new power unit were working as well as possible and the team was focused on its tasks.

I was also very pleased to see, even if was hardly a surprise, how our drivers worked in harmony and that they have already provided excellent feedback relating to the development of the car. We can't evaluate performance levels at the moment, neither that of the F14 T, nor those of our rivals. The important thing is to do as many laps as possible to give our engineers the data they need to continue with the development of the car.

The Ferrari Formula One team have unveiled the first images of the F14 T, the car which they hope will help spearhead a world championship challenge for the upcoming season.

The team’s official Twitter account posted links to a video giving us a look at the design, which features a peculiarly flat nose in comparison to the other concepts that have been recently released ahead of the first bout of winter testing.

Here, Tobias Gruner gives us a front-on view of how the Ferrari car will look this year:

You can also check out the release video on the official Ferrari website by following this link:

Here they provide a side-on view of the F14 T:

The F14 T, a name which was chosen by a fans poll in which over 1 million votes were cast per Fox Sports, is the first car to have the James Allison stamp on it after his appointment as technical director back in July 2013.

In his previous role at the British-based outfit Lotus, he oversaw a major upturn in the team’s results. Allison’s acumen should eradicate Ferrari’s newfound reputation for starting slow and help haul them back to the front of the grid.

Ferrari supporters will be hoping his influence, combined with the return of Kimi Raikkonen and the continued brilliance of Fernando Alonso, can help the Maranella-based outfit back to the top of the F1 standings and make a realistic run at the World Drivers' Championship, which was last won by a Ferrari by Raikkonen in 2007, and the Constructors' Championship, which they last won in 2008.

Raikkonen and Alonso pose with the new design here:

Ferrari will give the F14 T its first public running at the first winter test in Jerez in Spain next week.

They will be hoping that this new concept, combined with the introduction of the highly powerful 1.6-litre engines, will give them a much better fighting chance against the Red Bull monopoly.

The release comes after the McClaren and Lotus teams also unveiled their respective designs this week, and we’re beginning to get an increasingly clear picture of what the grid might shape up like come the first race of the season in Australia on March 16, 2014.