The 2005 championship season may not have been all they had hopped it would be but despite their difficulties, the Scuderia Ferrari team managed to only drop two rungs on the constructor’s ladder, finishing their worst season of the millennium in third place overall.

Some blame the fact that they were very late running their 2005 contender, the F2005, and not actually introducing it until well into the championship, however, looking forward to next year, team boss Jean Todt said that they will be ensuring that their new 2006 contender will be on track by mid January.

“We’re preparing as well as we can – I can’t say that we can prepare more thoroughly but we are attempting to reply to the problems that we’ve had this year,” he explained. “Even if next year’s car won’t be in its latest specification for the beginning of the season, considering the introduction of the new V8, 2.4 litre engine, we have decided to introduce the car as early as possible which is why we will introduce it by mid-January ’06.”