Ferrari reveals its 2019 F1 car

Ferrari has unveiled the car it hopes will finally end Mercedes’ recent dominance of Formula 1.

Sporting a new darker matte red livery with black Mission Winnow branding, the car - named the SF90 as a nod to the team’s history after its founding by the great Enzo Ferrari 90 years ago - was launched at the Italian squad’s Maranello headquarters on Friday. 

It will be raced by four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel and the highly-rated Charles Leclerc, who earned a seat at Ferrari for the upcoming 2019 season following a stellar rookie campaign with Sauber. 

"The car embodies the latest state of the art technology, reflects the new regulations for the coming season and is the fruit of the combined enormous work and talent of everyone in the Scuderia," said Ferrari CEO Louis Camilleri. 

Ferrari’s latest F1 car is the third to be designed by former technical chief Mattia Binotto prior to his promotion to the role of team principal in January in place of the ousted Maurizio Arrivabene.

The move acted as a major reshuffle for Ferrari on the eve of the new season as it looks to finally bring an end its decade-long wait for a world championship, having failed to do so in 2018 despite arguably boasting the fastest car on the grid for much of the year. 

A combination of management failures and driver errors hampered Ferrari’s hopes of securing a first title of any form since 2008, though the Maranello outfit did enjoy its most successful season of recent times. 

Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen notched up a total of six victories and five pole positions between them as Ferrari improved on its 2017 points tally and secured runner-up spot for the second successive year. 

Ferrari will hope its latest F1 challenger can prevent Mercedes from continuing its clean sweep of world championship in the V6 hybrid era which started in 2014 - with the German manufacturer on the verge of matching the Scuderia’s all-time record of six successive constructors’ titles achieved between 1999 and 2004. 

Like it did last year, Ferrari is planning to give its SF90 its on-track debut the day before the start of pre-season testing at Barcelona as one of its two permitted promotional events. 

Ferrari is the penultimate F1 team to take the wraps off its new car, leaving the rebranded Alfa Romeo Racing squad as the only outfit yet to officially launch its 2019 design and livery. 

The former Sauber team will roll out its latest car in the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya pitlane on Monday morning before the opening pre-season test gets underway, after ex-Ferrari driver Raikkonen got behind the wheel to put in the first miles during a shake down in Italy on Thursday.