New appointments include the arrival of Massimo Rivola (top), the long-time team manager at Minardi and Scuderia Toro Rosso while Andrea Stella becomes Kimi Raikkonen's (above) race engineer.

As Scuderia Ferrari makes several key personnel changes ahead of the new season the Italian media reports that the team's a new 2009 F1 car will be unveiled on 15th January. La Gazzetta dello Sport has reported today that the new car, expected to be dubbed the F2009, will arrive on the same day as Toyota is planning to unveil its new car, making these teams the first to present their 2009 challengers. McLaren will show their new car the next day (16th January) while the new Williams-Toyota and Renault cars' will debut on 19th January.

Meanwhile, Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal Stefano Domenicali has revealed to the Italian press that there will be several management changes at the team this winter as the F1 Constructors' Champions gear up to defend the title as well as making a bid to reclaim the Driver's Championship that it narrowly lost to McLaren's Lewis Hamilton last year. New appointments include the arrival of Massimo Rivola, the highly regarded long-time team manager at Minardi and Scuderia Toro Rosso, while Mario Almondo leaves the F1 team to join the road car division.

"The operations director disappears and Mario Almondo has become responsible for quality at Gestione Industriale," Domenicaliu told Gazzetta dello Sport, reported Autosport. "Massimo Rivola, previously at STR, will manage the sporting activity and logistics, regulations and circuits. Production and quality will go under the technical direction of Aldo Costa."

"We'll also have some changes on our on-track organization, still led by Luca Baldisserri. Andrea Stella - who already worked on Raikkonen's car as performance engineer - has been promoted to race engineer, while Chris Dyer has been appointed to a coordinating role over the engineers, including the test team. He will respond to Baldisserri." Dyer has been Kimi Raikkonen's race engineer since the Finn arrived at the team in 2007, and previously he was engineer to Michael Schumacher when he took the F1 Drivers' titles in 2003 and 2004. However Raikkonen has failed to get the best out of the F2008 package this year compared to Massa and Dyer now carries the can for this. "Diego Loverno will be responsible for assembling, with the aid of Mick Ainsley-Cowlinshaw," added Domenicali. Ainsley-Cowlinshaw is the former team manager at Super Aguri. "We also have a man responsible for KERS development, it's Thierry Baritaud."