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With its principal rival McLaren scheduled to follow tomorrow, and the others (accept for Williams) in the coming days and weeks, Ferrari kicked off the unveilings of the 2008 F1 cars when it took the wraps off its new F2008 today in Italy.

If you're thinking that the F2008 looks a lot like the F2007 it's replacing, you're not very far off. Aside from the fact that most F1 cars look the same to the untrained eye, rather than go with a completely new package like they did last year, Ferrari's racing engineers and designers opted to go for an evolution of the F2007 with the new car, code-named Project 659.

Despite the constantly-evolving technology in F1, the F2008 is actually heavier than last year's car, due to new regulations coming into play for the upcoming season that include the elimination of traction control, a new standardized ECU and additional safety structure. While the aerodynamic package has been significantly revised, Ferrari has been quick as ever to point out that all those wings and spoilers will be significantly revised again before the car begins its campaign to defend its world titles at the Australian Grand Prix in March.

The F2008 is scheduled to hit the track for the first time tomorrow at the company's private Fiorano test facility in Maranello. For more images, check out the gallery below. For those interested in the technical details, we've got the full press release after the jump.

[Source: Ferrari]

Gallery: Ferrari F2008

Continue reading Ferrari unveils F2008 Formula One race car

Ferrari unveils F2008 Formula One race car originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 06 Jan 2008 11:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.