Ferrari look to Alonso to restore flagging fortunes (Feature)

By Sebastian Fest Mar 3, 2010, 4:12 GMT

Madrid - At 28, Fernando Alonso is coming back to life on the track: following two seasons of suffering, the Spaniard again stands a chance of winning the World Championship, with Ferrari.

'He's a different person,' say those who have known him for a decade.

The Spaniard has revived after a tense 2007 season at

MacLaren-Mercedes and after two 'wasted' years with Renault.

'By comparison to other teams, you can live (at Ferrari),' Alonso said recently in an interview with the Spanish daily El Mundo. 'In the garage everybody talks at once, they shout, they run, you see people on top of each other trying to put on a part...'

'It's all intuitive, from the heart, with creativity. And also from the head,' he said of his new team.

A world champion with Renault in 2005 and 2006, Alonso suffered and moaned during the year he spent at McLaren. He was immersed in a head-to-head struggle with British driver Lewis Hamilton, a rookie who was in theory below the Spaniard's hierarchy but who rose fast through the ranks of a British team.

'A massive regret to me is losing a star like Fernando. He's one of the greatest racing drivers,' Martin Whitmarsh, who was McLaren's number-two man in 2007, told the German Press Agency dpa in August.

But it was too late for regrets. By then, Alonso had not only long left McLaren, but he had also closed a deal with Ferrari and was to leave Renault.

That was Alonso's path towards the 'scuderia,' which was according to many of those close to him 'the team where he always wanted to be.'

'The fact that the team is Italian is a bonus because of the language, the idiosyncrasy...' Alonso's agent Luis Garcia Abad told dpa. 'His state of mind is reflected in his comments. He is very happy, relaxed.'

The Spanish driver has come a long way from the sarcastic, resigned Alonso who last year said Renault's problem lay in 'either the aerodynamics or the driver.' And he has come even further from the rebellious, tense, at times aggressive, Alonso of a hard year at McLaren.

However, all those experiences shaped his personality for the better, Alonso admits.

'Now I am more mature with the experience of these years. I have more calm, more peace, I am ready for any challenge,' he says.

Colleagues also see him at an ideal point in his career.

'The red car suits him. He's the perfect Ferrari driver. He's exactly what they need - he's a passionate, fiery, but fair racer. It's good for the sport to have Fernando in a red car,' said veteran Australian driver Mark Webber.

And Alonso's return to life on the track re-launches the whole Formula 1 industry within Spain. The Montmelo circuit did not sell out last year, and television audiences fell. For 2010, however, record interest is expected.

Everything fits perfectly. Just like Alonso needed Ferrari, Ferrari urgently needed a man like Alonso.

In 2009, the team of the 'cavallino' had a season that was unworthy of its history, with one of its drivers finishing last in two consecutive races. That was Luca Badoer, an eternal test driver who stepped up to an official driver's seat following Felipe Massa's accident in Hungary, after the much-anticipated return of Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher fell through.

Curiously enough, Schumacher is now returning to the track. But he will do so with Mercedes. His 'natural' place at Ferrari will now belong to Alonso, whom 25.4 per cent of the readers of specialist magazine F1 Racing expect will win the title in 2010. Some 26.1 per cent expect 2008 champion Hamilton to claim the title.

At Ferrari, Alonso will be accompanied by the solid, reliable Brazilian Massa, who will also lay a claim on the trophy.

The question is whether the infighting that Alonso starred in three seasons ago at McLaren will revive with his ambitions this year.

'Alonso still has to prove that, psychologically, he can consistently respond in the right way if he is beaten by his team- mate, and harness his fury to improve performances out on track,' F1 Racing warned.

Alonso knows full well that Formula 1 is as much about patience as it is about speed.

'Winning in Bahrein is my number-one goal, but it is not a life- or-death race, I'm not obsessed with it,' he said recently.

What matters, he added, is to be clear about the key elements that are needed to win. And he knows the importance of at least one thing: race starts.

'It is always a crucial moment in which you have to try to overtake as much as you can, because afterwards it is very complicated. In terms of the strategy there is no longer much room for manoeuvering, it has lost excitement. We will all have two sets of wheels, and we will change them in the same situations,' he said.