Fermion Virtual Effects in e^+ e^- -> W^+ W^- Cross Section

We analyse the contribution of new heavy virtual fermions to the $e^+e^- \rightarrow W^+W^-$ cross section. We find that there exists a relevant interplay between trilinear and bilinear oblique corrections. The result strongly depends on the chiral or vector--like nature of the new fermions. As for the chiral case we consider sequential fermions: one obtains substantial deviation from the Standard model prediction, making the effect possibly detectable at $\sqrt{s}=500$ or $1000$ GeV linear colliders. As an example for the vector--like case we take a SUSY extension with heavy charginos and neutralinos: due to cancellation, the final effect turns out to be negligible.