The cold cut of a Modenese winter morning snaps the senses at the gates of Ferrari's Fiorano circuit. December in Maranello is always cold, often snowy, though this year the clouds and fog of the previous night have cleared, to leave behind a fierce-crisp day.
The frisson is in sharp contrast to the warmth of the welcome awaiting Formula 1 media inside the Fiorano 'pit garage', converted for the day into a press conference hall. Here's Piero Lardi Ferrari, sharp-suited in pin-stripes, somewhat surreally greeting the assembled throng with avuncular bonhomie. He looks so much like his dad it's impossible not to double-take.
There's new team principal Maurizio Arrivabene, known to many from his former role as a senior marketing exec for Ferrari's tobacco sponsor Philip Morris. Dressed in bright orange cashmere he seems comfortable on familiar ground, if a little apprehensive at the prospect of facing a barrage of questions from 100-or-so hacks, in this first public engagement of his new role.