The end of the 2014 Formula One season brought along a lot of changes, one of them being Sebastian Vettel's move to Ferrari. And though it has been just over a week since the season came to an end, teams have already started working on getting their stuff together for the next season; which leads me to this bit of news: Vettel's one-on-one with the Scuderia Ferrari garage.
In the wake of the 2015 Formula One Season, the now-former world champion dropped by Maranello to get acquainted with what will be his team for the next 3 years at least. Turns out, Ferrari has a way of charming the wits out of pretty much everyone, not excluding Sebastian Vettel. The introductory session included a couple of laps of Fiorano, and when I say 'a couple of laps', I mean about 100. However, the introduction wasn't just limited to lapping up the company's bespoke test circuit in a two-year old F2012, and also included simulator work in a virtual F14 T, and meetings with Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne, the F1 team's new managing director and team principal Maurizio Arrivabene, and technical chief James Allison.
Vettel described his first experience of working with Ferrari as 'magical' and went on to say, "There are a lot of fairy tales about Ferrari and how it feels to drive a red car. In the end I can only confirm these fairytales. "It's not just a story, it's a true legend that exists and it feels really, really special to become part of that, and to be inside the car, to see the people coming, running to the track and trying to climb the walls to see the car. There is definitely something very magical - and something that happened today which I will never forget."
Fun fact: The German wore a white helmet with the slogan 'il mio Primo giorno in Ferrari' ('my first day in Ferrari') written across it.
Reminiscing his visit to the Prancing Horse's hometown in his youth, Sebastian added, "I was here a long time ago as a little child, driving through Maranello and trying to look over the fence and trying to see a glimpse of Michael [Schumacher] running on the track. Well today I was the one running and saw the tifosi around."
Watch Vettel's debut in Fiorano here:
(Image sourced from crash.net)
