"It's simple, mate," he said. "Put it on pole, then disappear!"

As long as Fernando Alonso, the championship leader, finishes third or worse behind the Australian in Sunday's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, it would be that simple.

Webber would be champion, with no need for a last-lap shuffle from team-mate Sebastian Vettel, and Red Bull would have completed a deserved double entirely in keeping with chief technical officer Adrian Newey's magnificent RB6 design.

But little in this switchback season has been straightforward - particularly at Red Bull, where Vettel could have wrapped up the title some races ago had he had greater reliability.

"All the pressure is on Red Bull this weekend," according to one team manager with recent championship success. "And the biggest load is on Webber.

"He's not a young driver and you don't get many chances like this. Vettel will have many more days to challenge for the title. The team clearly back him."

"As for Fernando, he's been there already - twice."

Webber's outburst about his team's lack of driver equality before the last race in Brazil was interpreted by many as evidence that he's feeling the heat.

And those same observers viewed his quiet, reserved performance here in front of the world's media alongside his three rivals as another display of nerves.

Contrast his demeanour with Vettel's front row smiles, they were saying last night.

Consider Alonso's matter-of-fact handling of any barbed team orders related probing and Hamilton's back row cheeriness: "The guys in front of me have everything to lose, so for me I'm going to be flat out as always."

Hamilton's role could be a significant curve-ball if he can repeat his pole-winning lap of last year. But let's stay with Webber for the moment.

A one-time Jaguar official who worked with the Australian at the team and still works within Formula 1 gave me an interesting slant on his comments in Brazil.

"Mark seems to need to rev himself up, needs to feel he's got to fight something," my source said.

"He's a strong character and a good driver but for some reason he doesn't always show it unless he's gets himself wound up."

Will Webber keep his nerve in Abu Dhabi? Photo: Getty Images

His race-winning performance at Silverstone was a case in point. Vettel got the only new, surviving front wing off Webber's car before qualifying.

The Aussie got the hump. But he also got the victory - fast and furious to the end.
That was in the middle of his purple patch which continued until the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of August, when he was second to Hamilton.

Webber has not been on pole since then, and has not won a race since Hungary, the grand prix before Spa. He has been out-qualified by his team-mate at the last five events.

He lost valuable points by crashing in Korea, where he also lost the lead in the championship - which he had held for the longest period of anyone this season - to the driver he rates the strongest on the grid, Alonso.

So it is easy to see why so many in the F1 paddock believe Webber faces the greatest challenge of all the contenders this weekend to fulfil an ambition that's been losing momentum at the wrong time.

Essentially, it's now or never.

Even Webber admitted on Thursday that age is against him to enjoy more opportunities like this.

Indeed, one leading driver manager even suggested to me that, whatever happened this weekend, Webber's position at Red Bull was untenable.

"If he's champion, he should get out at the top. If he doesn't win the title, then why would he want to be in a team where he feels his team-mate is being treated differently?" he said.

By contrast, the Alonso Fan Club nodded sagely at the Spaniard's cool fatalism yesterday.

"I will not have anything to be disappointed about in 2010," Alonso said.

"This first year of the relationship we are fighting for the world championship in the last race against two Red Bulls who are dominating by far in terms of speed so overall I don't think it matters on Sunday."

Um, really?

Make no mistake, Alonso and Ferrari will be going all out to win the title on Sunday, however much they make out it would be an unexpected bonus.

But this chance has been as much to do with Red Bull's fallibility as Ferrari's remarkable recovery from a desperate mid-season slump which was threatening to turn the screw on team principal Stefano Domenicali.

If anybody can drive to a title-winning script on Sunday to join a select club including previous three time winners like Ayrton Senna, Niki Lauda and Sir Jackie Stewart, it is Alonso.

He is the man in front, with the experience of his 2005 and 2006 triumphs, seemingly able to work out the points as effortlessly as the strategy.

Above all, he knows that his rivals all have to beat him on the track to have a chance of the 2010 championship, whereas he could do the job even if he failed to finish through a mistake or a breakdown.

Vettel, who must have nightmares about that engine failure when leading in Korea, has appeared like a man who will be driving more in hope than expectation of coming first or second to have any chance of becoming F1's youngest champion.

The prospect of waving through Webber has not fazed him because both of them know their first priority is getting ahead, and staying ahead of Alonso before any switch comes into the equation.

And that is where Lewis Hamilton fits in.

He accepts that he is clearly the outsider of the four contenders; 24 points off the lead, he's all but written off his chances

But if the McLaren performs like last year - extra straight-line speed from the F-duct instead of last year's Kers power boost - on Abu Dhabi's two big straights, the 2008 champion could be the joker in the championship pack.

Hamilton gave a hint of what might be in the offing with his pace in second practice, especially in the final sector where he was supreme.

Another McLaren pole position backed up by race reliability, and those carefully prepared championship permutations at Red Bull and Ferrari will be crucial props in a juggling act which could keep us guessing until the final lap of the final race of this momentous season.

"I expect to win the race," he said after arriving at Interlagos on Thursday. "I see myself taking points from other drivers who are fighting for the championship."

Given his recent record at his home track, Massa has every reason to bang the drum for his side of the Ferrari garage.

He has started his last three races at Interlagos on pole. He has won twice and sacrificed another certain victory in 2007 to allow former team-mate Kimi Raikkonen through to become world champion ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, who was then at McLaren.

But he did attend the race, and waved the chequered flag at Mark Webber, who pulled off a commanding win for Red Bull which then became lost among Jenson Button's championship celebrations.

Massa is not alone in talking up his chances on Sunday.

In the words of a rival team principal very much in the title hunt: "Massa could be the joker this weekend. He's strong here."

But then came the put-down which will be forever aimed in his direction because of that now-infamous team radio message - "Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand?" - during July's German Grand Prix.

Massa has not enjoyed the best of seasons. Photo: Getty Images

"Massa, winning this weekend? No chance! With Alonso going for the title, there can only be one Ferrari winner," said the same source.

Nevertheless, Massa, who claimed that it was his decision to move aside to let his team-mate win in Germany, could find himself a key player.

The furore over Ferrari's team orders at Hockenheim - the sport's biggest headline story of the season, with a review of the ban pending at the end of the year - has given an extra edge to this dramatic five-way title contest.

If Massa turns in a strong front-running performance here, that could force some tough calls on the team bosses at Red Bull and McLaren, who still have both their drivers in the championship mix.

After Mark Webber's spiky rebuke to Red Bull over a perceived lack of equal treatment with Sebastian Vettel, that pit-wall group will certainly be one to watch.

For Ferrari, with only Alonso in contention, there's one less complication - and a simple strategy to follow.

If Massa is in a position to help the team achieve their goal - Alonso becoming world champion - they expect him to do so. Remember, Alonso is the only driver who can wrap up the title on Sunday.

With Alonso joining the team for 2010, Ferrari chose to keep faith with Massa despite uncertainty over his recovery from his accident and instead to pay off Raikkonen a year before his contract expired. Massa will be expected to repay that loyalty.

Massa himself was quick to remind the media on Thursday about how he had served the team interest here by helping the Finn to the title three years ago.

How he executes any repeat manoeuvre this year - with the furore over team orders still in the forefront of everyone's minds, and in front of a home crowd angered by his subservience in Germany - remains to be seen.

But the more immediate question is whether Massa will be competitive enough to play his supporting role this weekend.

Are we going to see the Massa who out-qualified Alonso in Turkey and Belgium and who launched himself so decisively into the lead from row two at Hockenheim?

Or will he produce another like at the last race in Korea, where the gap to his team-mate was little short of a second, the biggest of the year?

I understand that Massa's race engineer, Rob Smedley, with whom he has such a strong partnership, was so frustrated by his driver's efforts in Korean qualifying that he let him stew overnight before discussing the session or race strategy.

That cold shoulder treatment apparently had the desired impact on race day, when Massa did not put a wheel wrong in the tricky wet conditions.

As you will see in the interviews with the pair in the BBC One qualifying show on Saturday, Massa draws great strength from Smedley's expertise.

"He's always telling me things I need to do, he knows what I'm thinking," reveals Massa.
"He can make me drive faster."

Sir Jackie Stewart, who rated Massa's drives last year before his accident as his best, believes the 29-year-old has yet to come to terms with Alonso's superiority within the team and the fall-out from Hockenheim.

"I have to believe that Alonso went to Ferrari as number one, either written or agreed," he said.

"That result in Germany was a huge disappointment. But I suspect Alonso would have driven away anyway if he'd got past because he'd been quicker all weekend.

"And Massa will continue to lose out if his own performance is not good enough."

That view holds water among some within Ferrari who feel that Massa has not done himself justice this season because he has been unsettled by Alonso's pace.
The Spaniard has been consistently faster in qualifying, with his average advantage slightly more than 0.3 seconds.

There was friction between the pair after the Australian Grand Prix when Alonso felt Massa had cost him victory by needlessly holding him up. And that culminated in Massa's blatant switch of positions in Germany.

If the Brazilian is going to redeem himself in the eyes of his public, he will need better reliability than he had in second practice today when his car stopped on the track with a gearbox problem. It cost him almost half an hour's running time.

Because of his extensive experience of this track, that may not prove as damaging as Red Bull's early demonstration of impressive performance.

Ferrari and McLaren typically come on stronger in races, and their extra speed down the two long straights could counter Red Bull's pace through the in-field section of this bowl-like circuit.

But if Massa's confidence is stuttering and the conditions are unpredictable - heavy rain, like last year, is forecast for qualifying - he may find himself playing catch-up on the title contenders he's meant to be beating. Just like he has done all year.

And despite those best intentions, his team-mate will be left to take the fight to the front on his own.

Hugely popular, massively likeable, a sports nut who's as happy to shoot the breeze about Didier Drogba, Lance Armstrong or Ricky Ponting as he is to talk about Fernando Alonso, Adrian Newey or Bernie Ecclestone.

But Jenson Button's successor as the next Formula 1 champion? Alonso, Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel maybe, but not the 34-year-old Australian who had only won his first grand prix in 2009.

Webber himself would never tell you that because it's not his style to blow his own trumpet. Action not words is how he chooses to operate.

But he's well aware that this could be his one and only chance of emulating fellow countrymen Sir Jack Brabham - his father Alan's motor-racing idol - and Alan Jones in achieving motorsport's highest honour.

And he knows there are plenty of people waiting to see if he really is made of the right stuff to withstand the pressure from the more recognised contenders - his team-mate Vettel, Ferrari's Alonso and McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button - and make it a hat-trick of Australian champions.

To the doubters, the last two races showed that Webber had lost the mid-season momentum that had propelled him so forcefully to the front of the grid.

They believe they detect that the balance of power within Red Bull has shifted significantly towards Vettel.

Singapore and Japan were both labelled as Red Bull-friendly tracks but Vettel came out on top of the in-house battle.

The German out-qualified Webber at both circuits, and then out-scored him in both races.

The nightmare for Webber is that if Vettel beats him into second place here in Korea and again in Brazil, the pair would be tied on points heading into the final event in Abu Dhabi but Vettel would lead the title race for the first time this season because he would have won five races to Webber's four.

And, say the Webber doubters with a note of triumph, remember that Vettel won at Yas Marina last year.

So, they say, it's the dream ticket for Red Bull, then - the team's star young driver will graduate to become F1 champion.

None of this is new to Webber, nor will it cut any ice with him. He needs no reminding of his challenge.

This is a man whose website records his greatest achievement in motorsport so far as "getting into Formula 1 because the odds were stacked against us".

To emphasise the point, he's taken inspiration this week from a book, Don't Die With The Music On.

Written by one of Australia's most successful rugby league coaches, Wayne Bennett, it's all about making the most of your potential.

While preparing back home in Australia last week, he also spent time with two Aussie sporting greats, Ponting and Pat Rafter.

If Webber had heard Michael Schumacher talking about him on Thursday, he would probably have nodded in agreement.

"He has improved massively," said the seven-time champion in a BBC interview.

"Looking at his results, the way he drives and his consistency, I'm very much impressed with him."

"You'd rather be ahead than be behind."

Webber's team-mate at Williams during the 2005 season, Nick Heidfeld, is another who has noticed how his performances have stepped up this year.

The five championship contenders pose in Korea ahead of this weekend's grand prix. Photo: Getty

"He's made a good improvement in his racing because he was already strong in qualifying," said Heidfeld.

"If you look at the guys in the championship, he's done the least amount of mistakes. He seems to cope well with the pressure. He's doing a really good job and I'd still back him (for the title)."

Ah yes, pressure.

The charge that Webber cannot handle it was levelled at him after his ragged performance in Australia, where he ended up crashing into Lewis Hamilton.

His mistake off pole position in the next race in Malaysia to let Vettel through on the inside of the first corner - the move that decided the race in Vettel's favour - was picked on as another example of his fragility when the heat was on.

But Webber will tell you himself that he needed no public dressing down. He knew he'd got things wrong, and his results since then have proved the point.

Apart from that terrifying high-flying accident in Valencia when he misjudged his distance to Heikki Kovalainen - his only retirement this year - he's made none of the errors that have afflicted Vettel, Alonso and Hamilton.

Webber's team boss, Christian Horner, has been quick to reject criticism that Webber's been feeling the pressure of the run-in like Jenson Button did last year.

"You never saw Jenson on the podium in the second half of the season," Horner said.
"Mark, though, has been consistently running at the front. He has the character, like Sebastian, to deal with the situation."

Much might be read into Webber's spin in second practice in Korea. But he explained it calmly as a balance issue on the softer tyre and then proceeded to set the fastest time.

"We're in the hunt, mate," was his succinct summary of his track debut in Korea.

But he appreciates that he must check Vettel's resurgence, and the sooner the better.

"I win the next two races, it's all over. I'm doing my best then hopefully the rest will take care of itself," he said on Thursday, well aware of what his 14-point advantage means.

Vettel has admitted he's felt much more comfortable in the car since new software was installed to enable smoother power delivery through the double diffuser to accelerate out of corners.

It means that Webber has lost the little edge over his team-mate that he'd previously enjoyed when it was more driver-reliant.

Now he has to dig deeper again to repeat the sort of qualifying fliers that earned him pole in Spain, Monaco and Spa, thereby putting pressure on his team-mate to do the chasing and the overtaking which doesn't always seem to come naturally to him.

Red Bull insist both drivers will receive equal backing as they home in on the constructors' championship which they could clinch for the first time this weekend if they take another one-two finish and McLaren fail to score.

As far as the drivers' title goes, Webber will take nothing for granted after so much misfortune in previous years.

Always learning, always improving is another of his mottos.

If you think that sounds a touch melodramatic, then bear in mind the words of one McLaren leading official who told me on Thursday evening: "If he fails to score here, it's game over."

Having failed to finish three of his last four races and watched Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso overtake him in the standings, the last thing the 2008 champion needed was an early accident in practice.

But halfway through the first session, on his first proper run of the day, that's exactly what happened.

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He locked up his front right wheel heading into the second right-hander at Degner,thought he could catch the car but ended up bumping along the tyre wall and ripping off his front left wheel as well as damaging the McLaren's new rear wing.

Hamilton emerged unscathed but his distress was evident as he leaned back in the shadows under the bridge below the 130R corner. After looking steadfastly ahead, his helmet then slumped forward as if he was consumed by disappointment and disbelief.

He managed to avoid the television cameras and photographers awaiting his return in the paddock by taking a back entrance but you could see he had a face like thunder when he eventually appeared and marched into the back of the garage.

The big concern was that the chassis would need replacing, which would have ruled him out of the entire second session.

As it was, the repairs were so extensive - new gearbox, floor, and front and rear wings - and took so long that Hamilton was able to complete just four timed laps on the track in the dry.

That was crucial for race set-up because heavy rain is expected throughout Saturday, which would throw a whole set of variables into final practice and qualifying.

Hamilton is aware that could level the playing field and, depending on how severe the conditions are, the lost time could be rendered irrelevant, at least in terms of grid position.

But his reluctant, smiling admission after practice that he was "probably pushing too hard" en route to his crash will be seized on by his critics as another example of his excessive aggression behind the wheel costing him his title chances.

Indeed, that opinion was already being voiced in the paddock. "I see Hamilton and McLaren are throwing it away again under pressure," said a rival technical director.

Collisions in Monza and Singapore, and this latest incident certainly don't help his cause.

With only four races remaining, now is the wrong time for Hamilton to start making mistakes like Alonso, Webber and Sebastian Vettel have done earlier in the season.

Unlike in Melbourne, Valencia and Spa - when Hamilton found trouble but came through it - he's currently being punished for the sort of bold moves that make you look a hero when they work, and a novice when they don't.

Had he backed off and played the percentage game, say his critics, he would still be leading the championship. Understandably, Hamilton doesn't accept that view, and will continue driving as only he knows how.

"The fact is I'm not going to drive around in the position I was in and hope to finish the race. That's never been in me," he said in a BBC interview to be broadcast during the BBC One qualifying show.

"I want to fight for a win and I hope people respect that. Sometimes it is too aggressive and that's why it catches you out."

"Every now and then, you try to pull it back a bit and hope it works. Fingers crossed this weekend will be an improvement to say the least."

So far, not so good.

At a demanding track where he has raced just once - in 2009 - he has hardly scratched the surface of the programme that he and his engineers hoped to complete.

But his performance last year, finishing third, was one of his finest drives and is reason for optimism within the team.

"He likes it here, loves the track and will be competitive," said one engineer. "You can't take away what makes him the champion that he is."

Hamilton also received support from a rival team principal involved in the title battle.

"You must try to get your drivers as calm as possible, but it in the end it doesn't matter what you say to them because as soon as they get on the track, it all goes out of their heads," he said.

Another criticism levelled at Hamilton is that he's missing a management figure in a role previously filled by his father.

One team manager told me that Hamilton would benefit from having an independent sounding board outside the team environment, somebody on hand with advice on when to push and when to take it calmly.

McLaren's team principal Martin Whitmarsh would dispute that.

He made a point of sitting down with Hamilton after Monza and Singapore to discuss both incidents. And he did the same again after Friday's crash.

It's a point picked up by one last year's title contenders, Rubens Barrichello.

"The mental preparation is so important, more important at this stage than the driving," Barrichello said.

"He's clearly got the team support in a good way. But I'm not sure he has the car."

And there's the rub for Hamilton.

He acknowledges that the team are working flat out to improve the car. Another new rear wing is arriving overnight in time for qualifying, with engineers happy that the upgrade added performance.

But he knows, just like McLaren know, that Red Bull remains the fastest car. Ferrari have been quicker too.

So if he's to achieve a second world title, he needs something special from within himself to make up for a lack of performance.

"We've been over-delivering for a long period of time during the year," he said.

"We've not been at the front where we've been absolutely faster than everybody else. We've just done generally better jobs than other teams."

"Clearly now it's down to pace as well as no mistakes, and hoping that we're edging ourselves closer to the others."

Suzuka has decided some classic title contests. Hamilton has to believe - and demonstrate - that he's not about to be counted out this weekend.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner picked out Ferrari as their biggest threat.

Jenson Button wondered aloud if Mark Webber's experience would count against him because he'd be thinking too much about 2010 being his last title chance.

Fernando Alonso thought that a team-mate's help wasn't necessarily an advantage in the face of his rivals' two-pronged challenge.

Lewis Hamilton said Alonso was his main threat. And Sebastian Vettel was happy to be cast as the outsider in Formula 1's most thrilling championship battle in years, 24 points behind his Red Bull team-mate in fifth with five races remaining.

All good fun to prepare us for Singapore's night-time spectacular. But all five contenders know, like the rest of us, that this event in Singapore could become a turning point in the season.

Red Bull and Ferrari had faced claims - which they strenuously refuted - from McLaren and Mercedes that they were gaining a downforce advantage from 'flexi-bodywork'.

After the two 'low-downforce' tracks in Belgium and Italy, where Red Bull were beaten, Singapore is a high-downforce layout.

That makes it more like Hungary, where Red Bull were 1.2 seconds faster than the Ferraris and 1.7 seconds better than the McLarens.

So Formula 1 is now looking for answers to some key questions.

How much, if at all, has Red Bull's performance been compromised by the new tests?

How much ground have Ferrari and McLaren made up on the grid's pace-setters?

And how much closer will the competition be than the eye-popping advantage Webber and Vettel enjoyed in Budapest?

Significantly the top five in the championship were the fastest five on the track after practice. As the stakes have risen, so has the intensity among the contenders.

Despite the tricky conditions in Friday practice, where the track was never properly dry after an afternoon rainstorm, Red Bull were again the headline act, "crazy quick" in both sessions, according to Button.

On both light and heavy fuel loads, they set the pace - suggesting the new load tests have made little, if any, difference to Red Bull's pace, just as Red Bull had always insisted would be the case.

Vettel's one-second advantage over the field in the second session was misleading, though.

Alonso was on his first hot lap on the faster softer tyre in the drier second session when he overshot a corner and the engine cut out.

The Spaniard had set the fastest time in the first sector and was about to split the two Red Bulls by the line.

Alonso is confident that he will be leading the challenge to them in qualifying and the race.

"We're close to Red Bull. They're about a couple of 10ths of a second in front, but hopefully we can fight with them," he said.

That said, Webber, in particular, has appeared like a man on a mission all week. I understand he's determined to prove a point this weekend to silence Red Bull's critics who insist the team's been bending the rules over the design of the RB6, most recently the controversy over front wings and floor.

Reading Hamilton's comments on Thursday would only have stoked the Australian's fire.

"They were gaining from two particular parts and that had to be changed," said the 2008 champion.

"We didn't have that advantage because we were playing to the rules and hopefully it's now closer."

Red Bull have another new front wing here and further modifications to the floor, including a revised 'bib'.

They've also done work on their starts, which have cost Webber crucial places in the last two races. They claim they've resolved the problem but only when the lights go out on Sunday will they know for certain.

McLaren believe they can be much more competitive than in Hungary, described by one engineer on Thursday as "a massive wake-up call".

I'm told the car is "vastly different" to Budapest as a result of their constant pace of development.

They tested their striking new front wing, with an extra curved element, and other aerodynamic developments.

Initial analysis was positive but the greater concern is their performance on the softer tyre, with which both Red Bull and Ferrari found much greater consistency.

By contrast, both McLaren drivers saw the performance drop away alarmingly - not encouraging for qualifying, which looks set to be a straight contest between Red Bull and Ferrari.

McLaren may have to make do with row three if Alonso's team-mate Felipe Massa gets the best out of his Ferrari as well.

As ever this season, McLaren remain more optimistic about the race, when they hope their F-duct-inspired straight-line speed will count on the straights.

They're encouraged by the shorter corners here, which they feel will suit their car more than Hungary's opening sequence, for example, which Red Bull just lapped up.

In Singapore, as Jenson Button put it, the corners are "point and squirt" - like Canada, where he and Hamilton finished first and second. So brake, get in and get out as quickly as possible.

To do that successfully, you need good braking stability and traction - both areas where Ferrari excel.

Alonso proved that in Montreal and clearly in the last race at Monza.

Remember, also, how he dominated the first two sessions of practice around the streets of Monaco - until his crash in Saturday practice wrecked his challenge. But he still finished sixth in the race from the back of the grid.

Alonso was on the podium, too, in Hungary.

Ferrari have brought a new front wing and a modified floor, and if they find the balance as effectively as they did in Monza - where I'm told that Alonso's experience was crucial in pointing the way - the 2005 and 2006 champion looks set to keep himself firmly in the hunt in 2010.

The great uncertainty is the weather. Six hours after Friday's rain, when qualifying would have been starting had it been Saturday, parts of the track were like black ice.

Button reported that water was coming up through the asphalt in second practice and he couldn't see if the surface was wet or dry under the lights.

All five title contenders know what it takes to win at street circuits because all of them have done it.

They also know that one false move this weekend could mean the end of the road for their challenge.

In the wall or in the points - we're about to find out.

UPDATE, SATURDAY, 2100 BST

No wonder Christian Horner felt Red Bull underperformed in qualifying - Alonso has been handed the perfect platform to try to 'break' Red Bull in the opening stint.

The Ferrari has shown impressive pace on long and short runs in Singapore and Alonso's experience of these sort of pressure races could be significant.

And with Webber at the back of the championship contenders, behind both McLarens on the grid, Red Bull could be in for a testing afternoon.

Hamilton will be a danger to Vettel at the start, where the first few corners on what is expected to be a damp track will be critical.

Overtaking opportunities will be at a premium but there's always the chance of a safety car on a street circuit so the intensity of this race within a title race should be immense.

Fernando Alonso, who was at the centre of the storm over Ferrari's tactics at the German Grand Prix, cannot afford another pointless race like the one he endured
in Belgium a fortnight ago, when he failed to finish after crashing in the closing stages.

Alonso, the team and the famous Ferrari fans - the tifosi - all know that the Spaniard's title dream demands fresh impetus at their home circuit, where the spotlight always shines more severely and more expectantly on them.

Alonso and Ferrari can draw hope from the new points system, with 25 points for a win, which means that 150 points are still up for grabs over the final six races.

But his problems in qualifying and during the race in Belgium showed how quickly a driver can drop out of contention.

Ferrari have admitted that their overall performance there failed to live up to expectations, and claim that they've found the answers.

The only proof of that, however, will be in Sunday's results.

And if after this race the gap between Alonso and the leader has climbed to more than 50 points (the equivalent of two race wins), those final five long-haul grands prix, where Red Bull's drivers are expecting to dominate, could become a disheartening slog into November.

On the positive side, if there's one man on the grid with the expertise and experience to take the fight to the front, it's Alonso.

Confident of the team's backing, he can demonstrate supreme race-craft. He can read the race brilliantly from the cockpit, understanding what he needs to do to make the most of his opportunities.

Significantly, he's taken the road to the championship twice already so knows the pressures and pitfalls, as well as the rewards.

And he's with a team who possess an enviable range and depth of resources to deliver the maximum performance. Maybe not as effectively as McLaren, who made a much better recovery last season than Ferrari, but impressive nonetheless.

The downside to the season, however, has been the number of mistakes by Alonso himself.

Even the Spaniard has admitted he's surprised by his errors, particularly the crash he had in practice in Monaco which ruled him out of qualifying.

Ferrari had promised to deliver a big performance that weekend. He'd been consistently fastest until his accident which left him playing catch-up from the back of the grid in the race.

His jump-start in China was also most uncharacteristic.

He appeared to be caught napping when Jenson Button overtook him in Canada, and when Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi did the same thing in Valencia.

Alonso's drive-through penalty at Silverstone for cutting a corner when overtaking Robert Kubica's Renault could have been avoided if he'd only handed back the place as the regulations demand.

And the way his performance dropped off in Spa from qualifying onwards was most un-Alonso-like. He blamed the tyre choice in the final part of the session - yet both Button and Lewis Hamilton improved their times on the same softer tyre, whereas Alonso
stayed 10th, more than a second slower than team-mate Felipe Massa.

At times this season Alonso has seemed at odds with the F10 car, fearing that Ferrari were drifting out of contention.

Red Bull's dramatic advantage at the Spanish Grand Prix certainly rang alarm bells. Ferrari's version of the F-duct initially made the car slower not faster, and possibly contributed to him over-driving at Monaco.

The new blown diffuser in Valencia and the new front wing at Silverstone re-ignited the spark but until the German Grand Prix, where the furore over team orders completely obscured their team's winning performance, the improvements weren't reflected in the results.

It's as if Alonso knows the car is still not as quick as Red Bull's RB6 and is attempting to compensate by pushing it to, and possibly over, its limits - and even his talent can't bridge the gap.

One of the Ferrari's great strengths, though, is its braking performance. That was shown at the chicanes at the Canadian Grand Prix and it'll be crucial at the three chicanes at Monza.

The car also responds well through medium-speed corners such as the two Lesmos, so there is renewed optimism within Maranello that the tifosi will be seeing red near the front of the grid this weekend.

But for all the teams, getting the best out of Monza depends on finding the right balance between low downforce and high straight-line speed.

With no pre-race testing these days, it's a major challenge for the engineers. Do they run the usual Monza specific rear wings, or is there a speed advantage with the F-duct system and a slightly higher downforce setting?

For example, in second practice, Hamilton's car ran with a conventional Monza set-up without the F-duct aerodynamic device, while Button's car continued with the F-duct. Their best times were less than 0.06secs apart, within 0.4secs of a second of Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull.

Both Ferrari drivers, meanwhile, tested two different rear wings - both 'blown' by the F-duct - and now have to weigh up which provides the more efficient balance. Alonso edged Massa by just more than 0.1secs as the second and third fastest cars.

It left Alonso with a positive verdict for the weekend ahead.

"We are confident, we are happy with the job today", he said after practice. "We know McLaren are favourites for pole and we've seen the potential of the Red Bull all season.

"It will be difficult but we are there, we have nothing to fear and we will fight."

The forecast is for a dry weekend so that eliminates the weather variables which so damaged Alonso's last race outing.

Winning the Italian Grand Prix in a Ferrari ranks as one of motorsport's finest jewels.

Doing it first time out at Monza for Formula 1's most famous name, as Alonso needs to do, would be a spectacular re-launch into the title battle.

In one sense, it is, because there has been a month's gap between races.

But however much Red Bull's rivals, most notably McLaren, tried to switch off during the sport's summer break, the performance advantage rolled out in Budapest by Adrian Newey's RB6 flying machine haunted their holiday down-time.

Without doubt, the longest faces can currently be found in the McLaren garage. The team's renowned resilience and resourcefulness look like being tested to the full.

Privately, however, there is reluctant acknowledgement that they have to score heavily at these final two European low downforce tracks where straight-line speed - where McLaren are stronger than their title rivals - can be decisive.

As one team member put it succinctly: "It'll be all over for us if we don't. Red Bull will walk it in Singapore (first of the final five long-haul races), and be strong elsewhere."

While Sebastian Vettel happily described himself as "carefully optimistic" about Red Bull's prospects for the weekend, the normally upbeat Lewis Hamilton has been unnaturally pessimistic, seemingly resigned to chasing Red Bull's shadows for the remainder of the year.

"I don't think anything's going to change here. The car's still not quick enough compared to the others.

"We have to understand where the extra time and downforce is - and only once we've done that can we really move forward," he said on Thursday.

Now, I understand the McLaren engineers believe that a clever trade-off between more downforce and less drag thanks to their efficient F-duct aerodynamic device should make a difference here.

Yes, the Red Bulls will be quick through the long corners in Spa's middle sector, but McLaren should have the stronger performance along the straights in the first and final sectors to offset Red Bull's greater grip.

Not enough, probably, to find the margin of 1.7 seconds that Red Bull enjoyed over McLaren in Hungary but sufficient to be significant podium contenders.

Nonetheless, such a downbeat assessment of his car's current competitiveness is a vivid contrast to the optimism within McLaren at Silverstone last month.

That's when the team introduced their version of the 'blown diffuser' concept which has been an integral part of the Red Bull design from the first race in Bahrain.

Unfortunately the gains have not come close to fulfilling McLaren predictions. If anything, Button and Hamilton have found the car's balance worse.

Red Bull have continued to improve their performance since the British Grand Prix - as have Ferrari, whose own version of the blown diffuser has worked without problems since it was introduced in Valencia, the race before Silverstone.

McLaren, by contrast, have lost the edge they had enjoyed since their one-two at the Turkish Grand Prix and have now lost the lead in both the drivers' and the constructors' championships.

Now, we've seen this before when Mark Webber and Red Bull hit the front after Monaco. It appeared that the team were all set to capitalise on their advantage and take charge of the title race.

On that occasion McLaren struck back.

But this time they feel more vulnerable to attack, and their frustration is fuelled by the continuing controversy over flexible bodywork.

They believe that Red Bull and Ferrari have made their performance leaps because their front wings and the front part of the car's floor - frequently referred to as the 'bib' - are flexing excessively outside the regulation limits.

In McLaren's view, their extra downforce gains are, therefore, illegal.

If you watched the last two races, you would have seen slow-motion footage of the front wings of the Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren while the cars were on the track.

While McLaren's is very stiff and well clear of the road, the wings on the Red Bull and Ferrari appear to be almost touching it.

The team believe that the new FIA load tests, particularly on the rigidity of the floor at the Italian Grand Prix, will have an impact on their rivals' level of performance.

In the words of Jenson Button on Thursday: "I'd be amazed if there wasn't a difference (at Monza)."

One engineer I spoke to claims that Red Bull and Ferrari have a series of sections in their floor which allows the 'bib' to move, creating greater downforce behind the front wing.

The regulations state that the floor must be one solid piece.

Another engineer told me that if the other two teams have been doing this and are forced to make changes, then McLaren could find an extra 0.7secs, bringing them back into much stronger contention.

Not just at Monza, but for the championship run-in.

But he also stressed that the team has to be prepared for Red Bull and Ferrari to pass the new tests, in which case McLaren will be left to rely on their own technical talents to make up lost ground.

It should be emphasised that each time this season Red Bull have come under scrutiny for alleged technical irregularities, the FIA has consistently found no fault.

"We are confident that we will comply with whatever tests there are," said team principal Christian Horner.

"The new test will affect us only as much as any other team. If people are complaining, it shows that they don't know what we're up to.

Remember also that where once McLaren's championship ambitions looked to be a straight fight against Red Bull, now Ferrari's Fernando Alonso is back in the thick of it, only 20 points off leader Webber.

The World Motorsport Council hearing on 8 September into the Hockenheim team orders controversy hangs darkly over their challenge but their rate of development continues apace.

Ferrari, I understand, have reworked the rear of their car - with a new blown diffuser in which the exhaust gases blow through as well as over the new floor for the first time, as well as modified rear suspension and a new gearbox casing.

Their concern is over engines. Both Alonso and Felipe Massa have already used six of their season's allocation of eight.

If they follow the lead of some teams planning to use new units at both the power tracks of Spa and Monza, that could become a big issue for Alonso over the final five races.

For this weekend, though, Hamilton and Button, F1's two most recent champions - both of them wet-weather specialists - have to hope that McLaren can maximise what they have, otherwise they will feel like they're pushing water up Eau Rouge until November.

Formula 1 is in a fix. Over team orders. To keep the ban as it is or bin it - that's the question.

Or is there a middle way that would see the sport's law-makers provide a clarification that would specify precisely the circumstances when a team would be allowed to apply team orders and when they wouldn't?

Over the last two days here at the Hungaroring, I've canvassed opinion among leading members of teams in the pit-lane - team principals, team managers, technical directors and managing directors - who, it has to be said, all have their own agendas and specific team interests.

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The first finding to report is that nobody has a ready-made solution!

Significantly, the issue wasn't even on the agenda at Wednesday's meeting of the Formula 1 Teams' Association's Sporting Regulations Working Group. It was suggested, in the wake of the furore at last weekend's German Grand Prix that it should be discussed, but it wasn't added.

An overwhelming majority of the figures I consulted believed that Ferrari deserved further punishment.

And the majority view was that most suitable penalty, in addition to their $100,000 fine, was the loss of Ferrari's 43 points in the constructors' championship at Hockenheim.
The drivers, however, would retain theirs.

"How can you impose a really strict penalty for an offence that we all know the teams commit?" said one team executive.

Some thought a suspended race ban should also apply but, perhaps surprisingly, there was no call for another much heavier fine in line with the punishment handed out in 2002 after Ferrari's conduct at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Then, there was no rule outlawing team orders but the FIA imposed the $1m sanction because they ruled that the podium incident involving Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello had brought the sport into disrepute.

The only unanimous view I came across in all discussions is that rule needed to be clarified because team orders have always been, and will always be part of the fabric of F1.

So, if that's the case, surely it would make most sense for the sport to erase article 39.1 and allow team orders.

That would mean fans, the media and the authorities would know what to expect and there wouldn't be the outrage that surrounded last weekend's result.

"No", said one team principal. "There needs to be a deterrent. Otherwise you'll have another Austria 2002 when there was no ban on team orders yet Ferrari made the sport look stupid."

Support for that opinion came from one of the pit-lane's most experienced technical directors, who cited three examples of team orders which reflected what's acceptable and what is not.

"When (Felipe) Massa helped (Kimi) Raikkonen to victory in Brazil in 2007, and as a result the title, that was entirely understandable, entirely right," my source said.

"Massa couldn't win the title but his team-mate could. It was the last race of the season. And Ferrari explained it properly.

"Austria 2002 was blatantly wrong. It was only the sixth race of the season and Schumacher was already well ahead in the championship. He had no need for assistance.

"Then you had Hockenheim last weekend, and that's somewhere in the middle of the range. Alonso was clearly quicker and is their best bet for the championship.

"What made it so messy was the way Ferrari handled things after the race. It was a farce. They treated the public so stupidly."

But given the current ban, how else could Ferrari explain the Massa-Alonso switch, without openly admitting they had broken the rules?

As it is, another senior technical director believes the stewards got it wrong in Hockenheim.

He claims a more meaningful, damaging penalty for Ferrari would have been a 10-second time penalty for Alonso, which would have relegated him from first to third, promoting Massa to victory.

None of the people I've spoken to this week thought Ferrari got it right in Germany - and yet privately all will tell you that their biggest offence was not imposing the order on Massa but carrying it out so blatantly.

As one team official put it bluntly: "It comes down to how well we can cheat the fans, because if we do it well, under this current rule, nobody knows."

When I pressed for a form of words or a mechanism that allowed for team orders in certain circumstances, only in the final third of the season as some have suggested, nobody had a recommendation.

The same source indicated that drafting the sporting regulations could become a legal minefield with officials challenging the scope of the rule - "interfering with the race result" - in the same way that engineers challenge the technical regulations.

"Everything we do can interfere with the race result. What about the Red Bull front wing at Silverstone, for example? Only for Vettel, not for Webber."

Prompted by a leading technical director, I checked out the 1998 ruling from the World Motor Sport Council following McLaren switch between David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen at the Australian Grand Prix that year.

The FIA verdict read as follows: "It is perfectly legitimate for a team to decide that one of its drivers is the championship contender and the other will support him.

"What is not acceptable in the world council's view is any arrangement which interferes with the race and cannot be justified by the relevant team's interest in the championship."

This ruling stood until the end of 2002 when the ban was imposed.

As discussed in Andrew Benson's blog after the race on Sunday, there's a contradiction in F1 over team orders.

It's not so much what the teams do, it's how they do it.

In that context, it's hardly surprising that Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo would criticise the sport's "hypocrisy".

While the teams continue to believe in their unwritten rule which flies in the face of the official ruling, this latest controversy surely will not be the last.

And if the World Council isn't going to meet until 10 September - the Friday of the Italian Grand Prix, of all days - it guarantees that we'll all be watching the action even more closely.

But the doubters and the critics remain to be convinced that he will ever recapture the brilliance that set him apart from his rivals and took him to a record haul of seven world titles.

Even a number of current drivers appear to be unimpressed by what they have seen of him over the first half of the season.

When asked whether he thought Schumacher had made it difficult for him to overtake in the rain in this year's Chinese Grand Prix, he just smiled broadly, paused then said: "If you think that, that's your opinion."

Jenson Button admitted that he "didn't expect him to be struggling at this stage".

Speaking privately, another championship contender who raced against him before he retired in 2006 firmly believes that the German will never be the supreme force he formerly was.

Not surprisingly, it being the German Grand Prix, this weekend has a very strong Schumacher focus.

It's the first time since his return to F1 that he is racing in front of grandstands which became a Rhineland forest of flags and banners in his honour during his championship years.

But what's given the attention such momentum is the level of Schumacher's performance in 2010. He's beaten his team-mate just twice in 10 races, and been out-qualified eight times. Hardly champion form.

And Schumacher knows that. Some 109 points off Hamilton's championship lead, he's understandably ruled himself out of championship contention this year.

Yet he remains adamant that his unwavering aim to win an eighth world title next season is entirely plausible.

On one level, that attitude is entirely expected. This is, after all, Michael Schumacher we're talking about - one of the greatest drivers the world has ever seen, a man who never knew when he was beaten, and who was able to rise above uncompetitive machinery or treacherous conditions, or a combination of both, and still come out on top.

But on another level is Schumacher kidding himself, and only adding to the expectation which he has frequently described as being "unrealistic"?

Can he ever hit the high notes like he did before he retired - or is he just going to have to accept an unaccustomed place within the pack, albeit F1's most competitive pack in almost two decades?

It's hard to think of a classic Schumacher move this season, isn't it?

That pass on Fernando Alonso at the final corner in Monaco owed more to opportunism than outrageous talent, and, of course, was later penalised.

He's admitted that he's not at the level he wants, still unable to get the maximum out of the new narrower front tyres.

The 2010 cars don't suit his more aggressive style of driving, where he prefers to turn in to a corner with massive front grip. Currently he's not finding the downforce he needs. He's losing out particularly in the slower corners, which require precision and technique under these new conditions.

"He's having to get used to feeling a tyre, controlling a tyre and finding the best way to get lap times from a tyre," Ross Brawn, his Mercedes team principal, has told BBC Sport in an interview to be broadcast on BBC One this weekend.

"He's finding it pretty challenging and we're not getting the results we expect."

Another team source has told me that Schumacher can't overload the tyres like he used to. It means he ends up fighting the car and over-driving to make up time which he can see he's losing to his team-mate.

That causes errors like the one which wrecked his final qualifying lap at Silverstone, where until the third part of the session he'd been the quicker Mercedes driver.

He was around three tenths of a second off Rosberg in the first race, and despite improvements at Spain, when a longer wheelbase car was introduced, and at Turkey, the gap has not closed.

Similarly, by trying to ride the kerbs like he used to, Schumacher has damaged the chassis. He's now on his third of the season.

Lack of testing has clearly handicapped him. "It's been a big challenge for him," according to Brawn, who supervised so many of the endless miles Schumacher put in around Ferrari's Fiorano test track, working his way through problems.

"I know when a lot of Michelin teams went on the Bridgestones (tyres in 2007), it took them six months to get competitive again - and some drivers suffered more than others in that phase," said Brawn.

More time in the car would be one part of the solution but the regulations don't presently allow for that.

Nor can Schumacher easily make up for the three seasons he was out of the cockpit.

Rubens Barrichello, only three years younger and a former team-mate, says he's driving better than ever but he's been involved in all the crucial phases of an F1 car's evolution in that time and as a result, he's been able to adapt to the frequent changes.

Schumacher, by contrast, stopped, and switched off that part of his life, and you can't just flick it back on.

But there is another view - expressed to me this week by two rival engineers, one of whom worked alongside Schumacher at Ferrari - that will raise howls of protest among the huge Schumacher fan club.

Their theory is that the seven-time champion's reactions have suffered in his time away from the sport. They believe he's finding it tougher to keep the balance of the car because he's not able to react quickly enough.

Both sources have completed sports science studies which showed how a sportsman's reflexes deteriorated from his late thirties onwards.

Schumacher's enthusiasm, commitment, knowledge and determination remain as sharp as ever but the whole racing package is not at its previous peak.

Damon Hill told us before Silverstone that nobody should write off Michael Schumacher, given his past achievements.

But under current conditions, it's hard to see him leading the way in the manner that he, and we, became accustomed to.

Now, it may be that Mercedes will produce a more competitive car for 2011 and Pirelli, which takes over from Bridgestone, will produce tyres that he can understand better.

If that's the case, then what a prospect - Schumacher in the mix alongside Alonso, Hamilton, Vettel, Button, Webber and company.

On the other hand, it could be that F1 has seen the best of him - just like Lance Armstrong on his final Tour de France; seven times a winner but not once on his comeback.

From the depths of the 2009 early season debacle - when Lewis Hamilton was lapped here and struggled in third last - the Woking-based team now believe they could be on the verge of seizing the title initiative if their new exhaust-blown diffuser performs on track as expected.

For the first time in 2010, team insiders are targeting pole position on merit.
Hamilton's qualifying success in Canada last month owed much to circuit-specific characteristics - their extra F-duct-inspired straight-line speed worked to the MP4-25's advantage.

"If it (new diffuser) works, it'll be amazing," said one insider.

But is it really worth that much, I asked, mindful of how Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner and McLaren managing director, Jonathan Neale, had downplayed its impact?

"Oh yes," I was told. By two separate insiders. "It could make a difference of at least half a second." Both sources couldn't hide their smiles as they made their predictions.

Those words have a familiar ring to them as Red Bull's rivals attempt to catch up with Adrian Newey's brilliant design.

Without doubt, for example, Ferrari made strides at the last race in Valencia when they introduced their first version of the blown diffuser.

They were quickest in Friday practice, produced their strongest qualifying since the opening round in Bahrain and would surely have scored many more points in the race if they had not come unstuck behind the safety car.

Then again, Mercedes came to Spain with similarly high hopes of their diffuser but got burned - literally - because the exhaust gases overheated the suspension at the rear of the car. The team ended up modifying the changes and found themselves compromised on performance.

McLaren were well aware of their rivals' discomfort in the next-door garage in Valencia and their caution was justified during Friday practice.

Red Bull set the pace in both sessions, Sebastian Vettel in the morning, Mark Webber (in Vettel's cast-off chassis) in the afternoon.
The pair seemed able to exploit their pace at will in response to the rest of the field, with one engineer believing their domination could yet match that of Barcelona in May!

Despite leaving the track twice off the bump at the new Abbey corner, Hamilton and McLaren enjoyed a solid morning workout, second fastest.

But for the afternoon practice, the team changed the suspension on both cars and ended up going slower.

"Disaster" was the muttered verdict from one member of Jenson Button's side of the garage.

My information is that both drivers raised the same complaints about the set-up.

So yet again, McLaren face the prospect of a long night's analysis if they're to achieve the front-line showing they believe the cars are capable of.

Having had no testing apart from a straight-line aero run in Spain, my source had warned, "there are doubts because exhaust gases are so unpredictable. You can't see them. The airflow is so difficult to manage and direct."

The designers have also had to modify the cooling system to accommodate the increased temperatures around the new diffuser.

Changing the level of downforce at the rear of the car calls for changes at the front too, hence the new front wing.

Contrary to Mark Webber's belief that McLaren were sandbagging, one rival engineer claims that actually Ferrari were the team who were disguising their true pace.

The Italian team have brought a second version of their blown diffuser for this weekend.

And both Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa were lapping consistently on heavy and light fuel loads.

The stakes are getting higher as the season progresses, and both McLaren's ambitious drivers are aware of that.

Hamilton - who won here so memorably in 2008 - and Jenson Button - who is yet to finish on the podium in front of his home crowd - have made clear to the team that they need the new parts, and they need them to work if they are to maintain their momentum in the title race.

Red Bull may not have brought a significant upgrade package for this race - like they've done every other race since the Spanish Grand Prix - but their new diffuser looks to have taken them another step forward.

Two Red Bull engineers I spoke to after Sebastian Vettel's impressive victory in Valencia were adamant that they would repeat their 2009 one-two finish here.

Even allowing for the slower corners on the new layout, Silverstone's abundance of higher speed corners, particularly through Copse, Maggotts and Becketts in the first sector of the circuit, will bring the best out of the RB6.

All of which means Red Bull remain the moving target the rest of the grid is aiming at.

For the moment.

One former technical director with experience at three top teams claimed that the McLaren "steamroller" had the greater resources to maximise their performance over a championship run-in.

And because of that, he had no hesitation in predicting that if McLaren can surprise Red Bull and win on Sunday, they will go on to win the 2010 world championship.

UPDATE, SATURDAY, 0915 BST:

McLaren's decision to abandon the blown diffuser, which they made early evening on Friday, is undoubtedly a setback for their hopes this weekend.

Even worse than the overheating problems caused by the exhaust gases, they have brought a major upgrade to the racetrack and it has not delivered the performance they expected.

That, of course, is in marked contrast to Ferrari's experience in Valencia, when the device worked straightaway - and has added performance to the car at Silverstone this weekend as well.

McLaren now have just one hour's practice to find a balance and a set-up on the car around Silverstone's new layout.

Speaking to two of the team's leading engineers, I'm told they have had to revise their ambitions for pole position but remain hopeful that their new front wing will enable them to challenge Red Bull in the race.

This little hiccup demonstrates the fine margins all teams are working within as they race to develop their cars faster than each other.

The consolation for Hamilton and Button is that if any team can recover from this setback, it is McLaren.

UPDATE, SATURDAY, 1820 BST:

Even with a fully functioning blown diffuser, McLaren would have struggled to find nearly a second's worth of performance on Red Bull, who are as far ahead of their rivals as they were at Barcelona, a circuit with similar demands to Silverstone.

Lewis Hamilton's place on the second row was pure quality, a reflection of driver talent to get the most out of inferior equipment which seemed to defeat his team-mate.

Unless Alonso or Hamilton can make telling moves on the opening lap, it's hard to see Red Bull being beaten on Sunday.

If that's the case, Sebastian Vettel could head for his home race as championship leader for the first time.

By coincidence, it just so happens that the team's two drivers, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa who started the 2010 season with such great expectations, share the same hopes.

This race could be a critical turning point in the championship battle if Ferrari's most significant raft of upgrades is proved to work as dramatically on the track as they have in simulations.

It could transform a campaign which at the Turkish Grand Prix last month looked in danger of running out of steam already as Red Bull and McLaren forced the pace at the front of the grid.

Alonso even admitted to an Italian colleague in Istanbul that he was very worried how quickly Ferrari had fallen behind their rivals in the development race.

He was concerned that unless the team reacted strongly in Valencia, earmarked as the weekend for the next big round of updates, then any title ambitions could be over before half season.

Well, here we are in Spain, on Alonso's home turf, and Ferrari have arrived with their version of Formula 1's latest must-have system, the much-vaunted exhaust-blown diffuser which is reputed to have contributed so much to Red Bull's whirlwind start to the campaign.

Now the question is - can the drivers really find the performance improvement that's said to be worth at least half a second, lifting them right into the thick of the action across all circuits?

The last race in Canada showed that under the right conditions the F10 had the pace. Alonso could have won in Montreal but for unforeseen circumstances as Mark Hughes explained last week.

First impressions during Friday practice can be cloudy but Massa sounded suitably encouraged.

"I'm convinced we've improved - but how much it is difficult to say," the Brazilian said. "I feel the car is competitive and that's important to fight and I hope we are fighting."

Massa's view was confirmed by two of Ferrari's rivals, one of whom said the Ferrari was the fastest car at Valencia on Friday.

Ferrari tell me that this is no straight Red Bull copy, rushed into development as soon as it appeared.

I'm assured that the designers at Ferrari HQ in Maranello had been planning its introduction since the winter.

But the lack of testing means that key concerns have yet to be truly answered.

How successfully will the gasses from the exhaust be channelled over and through the diffuser? How will the car's rear suspension, the wishbones and the floor withstand temperatures of around 800C?

"Watch out for fires," was how one Red Bull engineer put it on Thursday night.

The levels of rear downforce may be improved in the short run but clearly if the heat is too extreme it'll damage the car over long runs and hugely compromise performance.
Track temperatures will be high. They're expected to reach at least 45C.

It was noticeable how in first practice Alonso held the car at the exit of the pit lane to simulate the wait on the grid before the red lights go out for the race to start.

That said, track time on Fridays and Saturdays can tell the engineers only so much. They need a full race distance to gauge its effectiveness.

And, most certainly, the system will be refined for the next race at Silverstone and beyond.

Remember, Ferrari have already endured one false start in development when their first effort at the F-duct - reducing drag on the rear wing to improve straight-line speed - saw them go slower in Barcelona.

So far, only McLaren, the team which pioneered the device has achieved the most impressive results. That's because it's been worked on for almost two years.

Because of the current ban on testing, it's so often a case of "fit and hope" in the words of a Mercedes engineer.

Needless to say, Ferrari's filming day at their Fiorano test track last Friday when Alonso tried out the new exhaust has infuriated many in the paddock who believe the team bent the rules banning testing.

The car doesn't look as neat or as cleverly packaged as the Renault who like Mercedes have also introduced their first take of the 'blown diffuser' at Valencia.

And there's the rub. Ferrari are not alone in playing catch-up. F1 development has never been so fierce.

Naturally, Ferrari hope they will make an important step forward this weekend. But there's no guarantee that it'll be any greater than that made by anybody else. If anything, it may just keep them up to speed in their current position as third fastest team.

McLaren, I'm told, targeted the British Grand Prix for their new exhaust system because they felt the gain at Silverstone would be greater than here in Valencia, plus it gave them more development hours.

And if Jenson Button's excitement at its prospective benefit is any guide, it can only up the ante of a thrillingly intense championship where five drivers have already held the lead.

The one notable absentee from the list is Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel.

"Ah, but it's who's the leader at the end of the season that counts," said his team boss, Christian Horner.

For a man whose pace-setting team could come under attack this weekend like never before from so many different angles, Horner has been a picture of cool.

He's almost amused that rivals believe they've rumbled Red Bull's trick performance tool - where previously it was a clever ride height control system, which turned out not to exist.

"We found that for us, the exhaust system was only worth one 10th of a second," he said on Thursday.

Yes, he would say that, wouldn't he?

But as McLaren have demonstrated over the last two races, the competition is closing in and it's increasingly tough for Red Bull's design genius, Adrian Newey to eke out further performance gains.

If Ferrari have done their calculations correctly - not to mention Mercedes, with team principal Ross Brawn asserting that they're still in the title hunt - Newey's life could become even more challenging.

And the overall winner can only be Formula 1, whatever the distractions in South Africa.

UPDATE, Saturday, 1710 BST:

For all the talk about the improvements made by Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault, Red Bull were somewhat overlooked - but they proved in qualifying that they are still ahead of the field on pure pace.

Somewhat under the radar, they have brought to Valencia a new diffuser and an improved version of their F-duct, and they were as dispirintingly quick in qualifying as they have been at almost any other race this season.

Their relentless pace of development will continue but, as has been proved before, their advantage on Saturday is not necessarily repeated on Sunday.

There are also still questions over their reliability, particularly here Sebastian Vettel's gearbox, which he had to nurse over the closing laps in Canada two weeks ago.

But two weeks on from the Turkish Grand Prix, the in-house rivalries at Red Bull and McLaren are still providing the biggest talking points.

You didn't have to walk very far down the paddock at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Thursday before you found by far the biggest media crowd gathered around Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel as Red Bull continued their efforts to dampen down the storm caused by the pair's collision at Istanbul Park.

The more you listen, the more you hear, the more contradictory the picture appears, however many interviews the key players give.

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But while we may never get proper confirmation of what was precisely planned and demanded from under the Red Bull pit-wall awning in Turkey, the fall-out is set to expose critical fault lines within the championship battle between Webber and Vettel, starting this weekend in Canada.

As with the race a fortnight ago, the key challengers are likely to be Red Bull and McLaren. But this time the stakes have been raised that much higher as a result of both in-house Turkish disputes.

Scrutiny from teams, media and fans alike will now be hugely intensified.

The key message from Red Bull throughout this week's build-up has been that the team is focused behind both drivers, with equal equipment and opportunity for a genuine two-pronged title assault.

What happened in the last race was "a racing accident", they now say, one of those unfortunate incidents that can befall competitive team-mates. That staged photograph of Webber and Vettel smiling and shrugging their shoulders at each other was intended to emphasise the point.

But my understanding is that the trust level between the pair has now plummeted.
Webber may be relieved that his private frustrations over Vettel's perceived favoured status have been released so publicly but Vettel is now very bitter that his race was wrecked in such a way.

Within the pit lane, however, there's little sympathy for the 22-year-old German among Red Bull's rivals.

Rival team managers have been scathing about the way Red Bull handled the episode, with one claiming it was "nonsense" to blame Webber. And it's interesting that team principal Christian Horner has now admitted doing so was "a mistake".

There have also been questions about the potentially disruptive influence of Red Bull motorsport director Helmut Marko, who so clearly backed Vettel after the race in Turkey.
It was Marko who blamed Webber in the initial aftermath of the collision, then changed his tack to accuse the Australian's race engineer, Ciaran Pilbeam, of not telling his driver, as instructed, to let Vettel through on that ill-fated lap 40 because he was faster and being hounded by Lewis Hamilton's McLaren.

German colleagues say Vettel's refusal to apologise stems from his belief that he did nothing wrong. The responsibility lay elsewhere, he believes.

As an interesting aside, some detect increasing parallels with fellow German Michael Schumacher, with whom Vettel's developing a closer relationship. Schumacher was never one for popularity contests but he does have a record seven world titles to his name.

Does Vettel see a similar path to follow? As discussed by Andrew Benson,
Webber's race engineer was busily engaged resolving another problem during those crucial moments, and remains in his role, despite claims in some quarters that he'd breached Red Bull's chain of command by his actions and should have been replaced.

Whether by default or design, Jenson Button's observation only added to the intrigue.
"Their crash was very strange," the champion said on Thursday. "It looked like Sebastian thought that Mark was going to move to the right. He didn't expect him to be there."

And listen to Webber answering one of many questions on Thursday, and you heard him make clear that there'll be no favours given or expected for the rest of the season.

Question: "Will you give him (Vettel) more room if he attacks in the future?"
Answer: "Or vice versa. We will see. We've had Malaysia, China and stuff last year."

When I sought clarification on Marko's mention of the order to Webber, one high-level source within Red Bull insisted on Thursday night that there had been no such instruction for him to move over in Turkey. Team orders, as we know, are banned in F1. So the answer was predictable.

So the precise chain of events may never be established. Yet while the grey areas remain, so will the questions and the suspicions, waiting to be fuelled by future conflicts.

Questions also remain about the "misunderstanding" at McLaren that led to the breathtaking duel between Button and Lewis Hamilton in Turkey. There has been confusion about whether Button had been given the same, specific, fuel-saving lap-time target as Hamilton in that race, and from that have stemmed the conspiracy theories about McLaren's handling of the race.

But it turns out that both had been instructed to save fuel from as early as lap 20 because the race pace was so fierce. And that after the Red Bull drivers had collided, both were given the same target times. Button even talked the media through them on Thursday!

The key information is that on the lap Button passed his team-mate, Hamilton had backed off by a further two seconds after going especially slowly through Turn Eight. That gave Button his opportunity to get close and overtake.

This week, team principal Martin Whitmarsh has said that the radio message given to Hamilton that Button would not overtake him was only "an opinion" from chief race engineer, Phil Prew, and that he was wrong. My information is that Prew was only "wrong" insofar as the team, like Hamilton, did not expect Button to make the move he did.

Like Webber - another 30-something with greater experience than his team-mate - Button felt he was there to race and not make life easy for anybody. If Hamilton and Vettel fell into the trap of underestimating their team-mates - as a good number within their respective teams believe they did - they are learning fast to rethink their approach.

Montreal has a reputation for making things happen, notably at the notorious 'wall of champions' at the exit of the final chicane, so named following the 1999 race, when Schumacher, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve all crashed there.

There's every reason to believe that a sell-out crowd is going to get full value for their money this weekend.

Certainly Mark Webber, the championship leader, has never enjoyed such success in motorsport's pinnacle category.

And if you've read my colleague Andrew Benson's blog this week, you'll appreciate the reasons why the 33-year-old is in the form of his F1 life, winning from pole in both Spain and Monaco, two markedly different circuits with hugely contrasting demands.

But the manner of those victories - particularly in Monaco, where Webber never looked like being threatened by his pursuers - has set plenty of curious minds racing about the most recent performances of his Red Bull team-mate, Sebastian Vettel.

On the two occasions last season when the 22-year-old German found himself dominated by his team-mate, he immediately struck back at the next event, either outqualifying him or winning the race, or in the case of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, doing both.

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel takes a break in practice for the Turkish GP. Photograph: Reuters

Over the first six races of 2010, Webber has performed better in qualifying against his team-mate than the whole of last year, when he was quicker on Saturdays just twice.

None of this is to call into question Vettel's sublime talent.

How could you after his lightning start to the season, which would have earned him the outright championship lead by some margin if only he had been blessed by better reliability in the first two races in Bahrain and Australia?

Publicly, team officials express delight at the championship standings and the see-saw battle between their drivers.

Privately, however, they readily admit that this is the first major test of character for their young charger, tipped by F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, no less, to succeed Jenson Button as world champion.

As one source put it: "It's going to be interesting to see how Seb responds. It's an important weekend for him."

Another just said simply: "It's going to be lively between our two drivers!"

In other words, is Webber merely enjoying a purple patch or has he made a significant leap in performance which will provide a sustained challenge to Vettel's aura of youthful impregnability?

Coming off second best to Webber in Spain was palatable because of the brake problem which almost wrecked the younger man's race completely.

Bringing the car to the finish so coolly when the team advised him to stop demonstrated impressive expertise.

But eyebrows were definitely raised when he found himself struggling to keep clear of Robert Kubica's Renault in Monaco while the other Red Bull was able to disappear into the distance at will, despite the intervention of the safety car no less than four times.

Vettel was not the only team member who could not believe he was suddenly 0.4secs slower than his team-mate where previously the gap had been hundredths of a second, usually in his favour.

Vettel claimed the RB6 had felt wrong all weekend, and a subsequent investigation found a crack on the monocoque and other assorted damage.

He has a different chassis this weekend - racily named "Randy Mandy" - yet in practice, albeit never a definitive guide to potential, he was again behind Webber - this time by 0.212secs.

Interestingly, I'm told that Webber's chassis has also suffered damage but there have been no calls from his side of the garage for a replacement. And why would there be when he's turned in such command performances?

As ever, it's a matter of confidence. Currently, Webber probably feels he could win on the moon.

Vettel, though, may feel the need to try a previous testing chassis as a personal vote of confidence that he is just the same, that it is the machinery that has not been up to scratch.

If he strikes gold in Turkey this weekend, that switch may prove crucial to his season, and his title ambitions.

If, however, Webber beats him again, making it three wins in a row, despite the chassis change, how much damage will that inflict on Vettel's mindset?

Remember, he is in good company over chassis issues.

Michael Schumacher has reverted to a previous Mercedes chassis after he believed he was losing crucial time with a damaged car in China. He was rewarded with a season's best showing at Barcelona first time out.

There's another striking similarity with Vettel's F1 inspiration which might also offer another insight into Webber's improved form.

Both drivers have told a German colleague of mine that they lack grip, and by extension confidence, with the tyres, particularly at the front. Webber, meanwhile, has found the 2010 Red Bull far more to his liking, able to turn in to corners with maximum attack and traction.

It means that the in-house rivalry at Red Bull has become far more intense than many of us bargained for at the start of the season. And that can only make for a more exciting, more watchable championship shoot-out.

Rightly or wrongly, Vettel has been perceived as the unofficial number one driver at Red Bull: ruthless and clinical, belying the choirboy looks, where Webber is matey and approachable but, some believe, lacking a champion's killer instinct.

Very much a protégé of Helmut Marko who oversees Red Bull young drivers, Vettel has appeared to have the ability and the results to go with the team owner Dietrich Mateschitz's backing.

His strong finish as runner-up in the 2009 championship served to confirm the view that he would be the team's leading contender in 2010.

But just as Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg have confounded pre-season predictions that they would be forced to play second fiddle to their respective team-mates, Lewis Hamilton and Schumacher, so Webber looks to have found another gear to take the fight more closely to his team-mate.

Nobody is tougher on his own performances than Vettel himself. His self-analytical approach is recognised by the team as one of his great strengths.

The new points system means any one of the top eight could leave Istanbul Park on Sunday as championship leader.

And after throwing away his pole position advantage here last year, and losing out so comprehensively over the last two races, few on the grid have more reason to get it right than Sebastian Vettel.

"Driving at Monaco means nothing to me", said F1's top rookie after 2010's opening races.

What about the history and the tradition of one of the most famous races in the world?

"I don't feel anything about the history," he said.

I have to admit his answers left me lost for words. I have never come across anybody - driver, engineer, mechanic, journalist or fan - who was so dismissive and so detached about racing on the most renowned street circuit on the globe.

The Monaco Grand Prix was the first race which grabbed my attention and switched me on to F1. It was the one track, above all others, that I wanted to visit.

Vitaly Petrov is focused on racing and has no time for the many distractions Monaco has to offer

Squeezed in between the jagged hills which rise so sharply and the harbour full of multi-million pound yachts on a shimmering Mediterranean sea, there appears barely enough space to park a car, never mind race 24 of them.

Yet part of the beauty of Monaco is how close to the action spectators can find themselves.

At some parts of the track, such as the sea-front chicane at the exit of the tunnel, you actually could reach out and touch the cars as they navigate the kerbs before blasting away towards Tabac corner and the spectacular Swimming Pool complex.

Rubens Barrichello has been both a racer and a resident here over the last two decades and he smiles when he recalls his first impressions of this most unlikely sporting location.

"I arrived in Monaco and was puzzled. I had to ask: 'Where's the track? I can't see it," the Brazilian said.

"I couldn't believe it when I was told I was standing on it. It looked so narrow. I thought: 'How could you ever go flat out round here?'"

"I took the whole of my first practice session to build up the confidence and the speed to do it."

Few would argue with the words of Barrichello's fellow Brazilian, Nelson Piquet, who memorably likened racing in Monaco "to riding a bicycle around your living room".

The tightest and shortest circuit on the calendar, it's the ultimate driving test around a layout which has hardly altered from the first race in 1929 - a world away from architect Hermann Tilke's new designs like Bahrain, Shanghai or that deluded Monaco wannabe, Valencia.

Consider the roll of past winners and you understand why Monaco is regarded as the premier driver's circuit.

Ayrton Senna's won six times, Michael Schumacher and Graham Hill five times, Alain Prost four times, with those knights of the road, Stirling Moss and Jackie Stewart, both three-time winners and Juan Manuel Fangio twice.

Without their rarefied mix of concentration, confidence, consistency, courage and crucially talent, charging between the barriers at speeds of up to 170 mph can become an exercise in damage limitation.

The slightest deviation caused by one of the many bumps or markings on what are public roads for the rest of the year can wreck a car in an instant. And in a wet race, when a driver's skill is even more critical, the white lines are like marble.

"To be so close to the wall at such a speed, to have the flow of the track is extra special", said Schumacher this week.

"When you have big run-off areas, it allows this extra per cent in safety. Here, if you want to nail it, there is no margin for any little error whatsoever."

Drivers frequently say it becomes almost mesmerising to complete a lap in less than 80 seconds over a race distance of 78 laps, blinkered and hemmed in by steel barriers throughout.

Nobody who was here in 1988 will ever forget Ayrton Senna's extraordinary qualifying lap, almost one and a half seconds quicker than his McLaren team-mate, Prost.

"Suddenly it frightened me because I realised I was beyond my conscious understanding," Senna explained afterwards.

His crash into the barriers the next day when comfortably leading only added to the mystique of Monaco. The greatest battle for drivers in sight of the chequered flag can be with themselves, maintaining the pace and precision to complete a successful afternoon.

Senna's spellbinding duel with Nigel Mansell in 1992 (see highlights video below) also highlighted the elevated role of the driver and the importance of track position here.

Mansell's Williams was by some margin the fastest car but Senna's McLaren held him resolutely at bay over the final laps after the Englishman had to make an enforced pit stop. The Briton's last chance to win in Monaco had gone.

Jenson Button will tell you that nothing compares to qualifying here.

"It's a crazy circuit to drive but when you really hook up a good lap, it means more to you than anything else in Formula 1," he said.

With overtaking so limited, grid position is all, hence the drivers' concerns over back-markers in the first part of Saturday's session. Too far off the front row means too little chance of victory.

Races here can be processional but imagine yourself in the cockpit, and you can't fail to marvel at the driving skill on show.

Show. There's a word that's absolutely key to a Monaco weekend. Why else do Hollywood stars from the Cannes film festival, billionaire captains of industry, international footballers and top-selling musicians find themselves drawn to this principality?

Monaco is a place to be seen and a place to do deals as much as place to go racing.

F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has admitted: "They give us more than we give them."

Other longstanding venues such as Silverstone and Spa have been threatened with losing their places at F1's top table.

But Monaco continues to revel as the sport's jewel in the crown and shows no sign of losing of its sparkle.

What finer place to celebrate this day, the 13 May, the 60th anniversary of the F1 world championship?

The verdict after his latest 10th-place finish in China left him 40 points shy of team-mate Nico Rosberg was inevitably and hugely critical.

Even the seven-time champion admitted immense disappointment at his inability to make progress in the type of changeable, wet conditions where he had once reigned supreme.

Little wonder, then, that one of the jokes doing the rounds in Shanghai was that the Mercedes upgrade for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix should be Nick Heidfeld - the promotion of the reserve driver to a race seat.

For the first time since his return, Schumacher has been quicker than Rosberg in both Friday practice sessions. And more significantly, he has talked of having confidence to drive the car how he used to.

"The car goes where I want it, and I don't have to wait too long to go to this point," he said after his most productive Friday of the season, which he finished more than half a second quicker than his team-mate.

Part of the improvement is down to Rosberg's struggle for the right set-up for this highly sensitive aerodynamic track, whereas Schumacher nailed his balance more quickly on similar fuel loads. But not all.

The team have been hugely impressed by the 41-year-old's performance through the high-speed corners. "I've never seen anything like it," was how one team member put it. "Today was a genuine performance."

I'm also told that Schumacher is reaping the reward of a new chassis which he used in the pre-season test here.

One engineer estimated that the previous one, which he damaged over the kerbs in Bahrain and Melbourne, had been costing him around 0.3 seconds per lap ever since, despite the team making running repairs.

Some have seized on this upturn in performance as further proof that Schumacher is forcing the team to dance to his tune, which is out of step with Rosberg's preferences.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it, harking back to the accusations of favouritism during his champion days at Ferrari?

But sources at Mercedes are adamant that this is not the case.

I'm told that Rosberg was in full agreement with the decision to alter the weight distribution within a longer wheelbase, which is what is behind the car's change in behaviour.

One source at the team's factory in Brackley said that this design change had been put into action pretty much after the first morning of the car's very first test in Valencia in February, when the team had their worst fears over the W01's weight distribution confirmed.

"Michael's not had the front grip he was used to. The balance has never been right, and he's never had to go down this development path before," the source told me.

"He's still learning about the narrower front tyres [that were introduced for 2010]. Hopefully he can now drive the car as he always intended, and there are more upgrades to come before Silverstone."

The team believe they've drawn level with McLaren and Ferrari, with Red Bull still in front, particularly in qualifying.

It's not a complete renaissance, however. I'm told that Schumacher is still struggling to get the best out of his tyres in the wet.

But if the weekend remains dry, and the forecast seems to vary depending on which team you talk to, Mercedes believe Schumacher could be quick enough for a place on the second row of the grid.

Before practice, I'd been warned by one source that, while Schumacher wouldn't admit it, he was determined to finish ahead of Rosberg on a Friday.

Job done. Now for the real business of the weekend.

Barcelona's most successful performer may have been out-qualified by his younger, less celebrated team-mate at all four races in 2010, but there are signs that, far from losing it, Schumacher is finding his way as only he can.