It’s not a pizza! - Vettel explains new F1 car’s name

Sebastian Vettel has called his latest F1 car Margherita, with the Ferrari star engaging in some light banter with Daniel Ricciardo about the origin of the nickname.

Vettel has taken up the habit of christening each of his new machine, starting with ‘Julie’ at Toro Rosso in 2008.

It was succeeded by the colourful duo of ‘Kate’ and ‘Kate’s Dirty Sister’ (the second following a chassis change), while other provocative monikers subsequently included ‘Luscious Liz’, ‘Randy Mandy’, ‘Kinky Kylie’, and ‘Hungry Heidi’.

The latter turned out to be quite apropos since Vettel drove it to a record nine consecutive wins to wrap up the 2013 season with 13 race victories overall. The four-time world champion then chose the sober ‘Eva’ for his first Ferrari car – the 2015-spec SF15-T.

Speaking in Thursday’s FIA press conference, Vettel was asked why he had named his SF16-H “after a pizza”. Here is the full transcript of his answers, with Ricciardo chiming in.

SV: It’s not named after a pizza. It’s a name, first of all. So, I think…

DR: What’s it called?

SV: Margherita.

DR: It’s a cocktail!

SV: I think if you look up, the first thing that comes it is that it’s a name, not a pizza.

Journalist: Why Margherita then?

DR: Because it’s a pizza!

SV: No, because it’s a drink! No, various reasons. We like the name. Every year we give the car a name. Last year Eva, this year Margherita. We’re happy with that.

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