Shortly before pre-season got underway in Barcelona, Alfa Romeo finally revealed the livery in which its 2020 contender, the C39, will race.

Though Robert Kubica will be first to drive the car, Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi were both on hand for the obligatory reveal and media shoot.

While the Finn said the C39 "looks better than last year", his Italian teammate insisted that it was "beautiful".

However, looks count for little once the lights go out, and the Swiss team will be seeking to improve on last season.

Coming off the back of a strong season in 2018, which was in itself a leaps and bounds improvement on 2017, Alfa Romeo was expecting more in 2019. But in the three, four, five-way battle that was the midfield, and with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull effectively filling the first six places, there was only so much room for improvement, certainly in terms of point scoring.

Scoring points in the first four races was possibly the worst thing that veteran Raikkonen could have done, for it offered hope. Then there was another flurry of point scoring mid-season, followed by a fine fourth in the ever-changing conditions in Brazil.

At season end, Alfa was eighth, like Sauber the season before, but with nine more points - the majority of which were scored by everyone's favourite Finn.

The C38 wasn't a bad car as such, but neither was it a particularly good car, and while it showed glimpses of good one-lap pace it was on Sunday afternoons that it struggled, a situation not helped by the struggle with the 2019 tyres or a number of strategic errors.

The 2020 livery, developed in close cooperation with the Centro Stile Alfa Romeo, features the iconic red of Alfa Romeo, with scarlet stripes now extending all the way towards the front of the chassis.

Overall, it's a strong design that pays tribute to the Sauber tradition – on the 50th anniversary of the team's foundation – and to the team's partners.

Designed and developed under the coordination of Technical Director, Jan Monchaux, the C39 bears just passing resemblance to its predecessor: it is, instead, a completely new concept aimed at helping the team build on the strong steps made in the last two years and continue its progress towards the front of the grid.

"The C39 is the product of the hard work and vision of a large group of highly committed individuals," said Frederic Vasseur, "and it's testament to the quality of everyone in our team. We hope it will help us move the team forward and achieve our objectives.

"Our target hasn't changed: we want to do a better job tomorrow than we did today. We are a growing team and still have to improve in every single area and every single department of the company.

"This is an open-ended project, there is no finish line – everyone has to be fully focused and dedicated. We are moving forward, we already did a huge step compared to where we were at the beginning of 2018 but we have to continue on this path."

"The C39 is a natural evolution of last year's car," added technical director, Jan Monchaux, "even though it doesn't share a lot with its predecessor. We have been further improving our car but, apart maybe rims and tyres and some internal components, there is barely a single visible part that is the same.

"It's the usual process of constant improvement, but it's a brand new beast. We expect to improve on what we achieved last season, to make a step forward and hopefully be able to fight for the position at the top of the midfield."

Check out our Alfa Romeo C39 reveal gallery, here.

More words and pictures to follow