Current Ferrari

if you think about it Alonso lost the championship crashing at MOnaco in practice and doing that stupid grass cut at Silverstone on Kubica that demoted him to the back and he told the team to shut up and not speak to him for the rest of the race

Massa had to let Alonso through because the order came from Domenicali to Smedley so you can't overrule your boss unless you want to get sacked.... its not Massa's fault Alonso got boxed at the start and Massa had a better getaway and was leading comfortably that is part of racing being able to get off the line cleanly

Massa was the one who made the better start

Alonso up to that point I would not say outperform Massa given Felipe actually lead after round 3 and there was not really that much of a gap between them.. certainly not as big as now

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I think the reason people use number 1 status to beat up on alonso is because he s being beaten by trulli back in 2004, when trulli was dropped as he refused to sign a management agreement with flavio! As such, alonso was getting preferential treatment.... (although trulli did himself no favours at races like Mangey course !)

I don't think anyone is denying that Alonso is a great driver as a crap driver would never get No 1 status..

lets say Alonso knows how to let Ferrari know he's not happy to get them sorted. Previous Ferrari drivers would get sacked if they ever speak out against the management.

Il leone.....

You can always look back at a championship to where you believe a driver lost the title but no one can deny that Alonso was leading on points going into the final race in 2010, the team made a very bad call and Alonso lost the title right there.

Ferrari don't need Alonso to tell them he's not happy, none of them are but they all share the same passion and will be working equally hard to become competitive. Alonso will be very much in the mix before the midway point of the season.

This Ferrari is seriously awfully slow even Pat Fry says the team need fundamental changes

The mad house politics and spaghetti culture at Ferrari has resurfaced again but if there is one person who can sort the team its Alonso.. I don;t think Vettel or Hamilton would be able to do it if they were in the same situation on reflection because of the way they were bought through into F1

....and I don't believe that Alonso can do it on his own. What he can do is make sensible inputs and provide the team with a focus point for testing upgrades.

Ferrari are about where they thought they'd be in China and it appears they believe Bahrain could be even more difficult. Their upgrades for Spain should help but they won't be a miracle cure, which is why Alonso has said he doesn't believe Ferrari will show their true pace until Canada. It will take time to tune their upgrades. Despite that my bet is they'll be very strong at Monaco. Mechanical grip as opposed to aerodynamics are more important there, and it's a place where a driver can make a huge difference. He won't say as much but my bet is Alonso will be looking forward to the Principality also. The half way point in the season is when they cross the finish line in Hungary. I won't be surprised if Alonso is still in the top three or four, if so look forward to another stunning second half of the Championship because he won't lie down.

I'd be amazed if Alonso is still within a shout because surely Red Bull will sort themselves out by then..they just need to get quali right... Mercedes will cause problems on circuits that rely on top speed rather than aero and Lotus will drop back from the first but

its going to take some miracle work to turn Ferrari around

Pat Fry has admitted Ferrari need fundamental changes... No Alonso can;t do it all on his own but he can certainly get the team to pull in his direction which is what Luca is seeing at least something that irked him when Raikkonen was not doing the same... despite Kimi saying he drove well in 2009 but the performance of the car does not reflect he was given it all

I can't see Ferrari making up the gap not even Alonso can do it ...Webber and Hamilton were very poor last year although Alonso was exceptional.

However this Ferrari is an even worse car

Sergio Perez and Jules Bianchi both tested for Ferrari last year, so I wonder if either will be driving for them at the upcoming Mugello test.

I did think if Perez does not want the Ferrari drive now would Ferrari pick Bianchi but I've only heard about him from having a good PR machine no doubt but he did not have a good GP2 last year

Ferrari never pick rookies but surely they can't do worse than they are now with Massa

We do knock the BBC for its F1 team but hiring Gary Anderson was a master stroke as he really does break down the techno babble on the new Ferrari design for us here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/17937295

He might have to do it with a pen and paper but better than the Sky

I just heard on practise 2 that Ferrari have gone to the centralised console in the garage like Mclaren have. It will be interesting to see how that works out. I dont think its a good idea, but maybe because they already operate with a clear number 1 driver it wont cause such a problem.

thats the key, it must work well with a number one and two, its very good for the team, both sets of data available to both sides allowing co operation, provided the drivers are not competing for the same pieces of track at the same time

It should be fine at Ferrari, Alonso will just get the optimum calls and strategies. Could be fireworks next year if Webber goes there. Twilight of his racing career, outspoken guy

What's a centralised console?

Slyboogy the thing on the right here with the computers (couldn't find a better picture sorry). It's in the center of the garage, hence centralised. Most teams have a separate one in each driver's side of the garage.