Sebastian Vettel says that the entire Ferrari team is fired up and hungry for success in the new Formula 1 season as it looks to end its title drought.
Ferrari last won a championship back in 2008, prompting marque president Sergio Marchionne to say earlier this month that it would be a “tragedy” if it went more than 10 years without a title.
Vettel is expected to spearhead Ferrari’s charge in 2016 after a successful maiden season with the team last year, and has high expectations for his second campaign at Maranello.
“We’ll try to raise [expectations] naturally,” Vettel said. “Obviously you don’t want to do worse than the year before, that’s clear.
“I think you can feel it going around in the factory. I think everybody is fired up and want to win. The target is clear, the expectation is there. But I think that’s also where we want to be. We’ll see how close we are and how much there is to do during the season.”
Vettel believes that the added cohesion of the team will be clear in 2016, with the new SF16-H car being the first to have been developed since the personnel overhaul at the end of 2014.
“I think last year was very good for us, very positive. Obviously the success we had early on helped to stabilize the team,” Vettel said.
“Nevertheless, it’s still a young team, a lot of new people. Now they’ve been in the job for one year, and I think it really starts only now that we see the results so obviously in this regard the new car this year is really the first for this team, and therefore I’m very excited to get on track and see how it feels.
“Obviously from the outside you see that the car looks lsihgly different. There’s a bit of a new car design going on which I like a lot, it looks very nice. My helmet suits the white topping on the car.
“And then I think more exciting is on the inside, a lot of new stuff, new things. It’s always fun to watch the process very closely over winter with the team, and then especially in the past few days when things start to come together.”
