This has been a pricey season for Ferrari, which has not only had to pay off Kimi’s contract (while he contests the World Rally Championship for Citroën), but also to stump up for Fernando, who may be earning somewhat less than Kimi did (and certainly less than Mercedes is paying Michael Schumacher), but is still at the high end of the pay scale.

I’ll admit that when Alonso’s signing was confirmed I thought it good reason for other teams to quake a little. In the two years when Fernando won the World Championship, 2005 and ’06, Schumacher was still in his pomp, yet Alonso – with Renault – beat him. Put all that talent and commitment to work at Maranello, and how could anything much go wrong? When Fernando won the opening Grand Prix, in Bahrain, it seemed to suggest a stellar season for Ferrari.

As I write, immediately before Hockenheim, that remains the team’s only victory in 2010. All season long Red Bull has had unquestionably the quickest car, but it has been by no means the most reliable – and that, whatever else, has always been one of Ferrari’s strongest suits. When Sebastian Vettel’s car faltered in Bahrain, it was Alonso and Massa who took over.

Since then, though, it has been McLaren which has benefited most from Red Bull failings – and rightly so, because its car has been consistently developed, in the traditional McLaren manner, and if the MP4-25 is not the equal of the Red Bull (particularly in qualifying), in most of the races it hasn’t been far away. Thus, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button sit first and second in the point standings.

Ferrari, meantime, has had a pretty thin season, and although Alonso has predictably outpaced Massa, one may be sure that he never envisaged, at mid-season, being only fifth in the championship, 47 points adrift of Hamilton.

In part this is because Fernando has made mistakes, which is uncharacteristic of him. There have been tangles at the first corner, an unfathomably jumped start, a shunt at Monte Carlo, which obliged him to miss qualifying and therefore start from the back – after being quickest of all in the first two practice sessions…

Many of the mistakes, I would suggest, have occurred because for a long time Alonso has necessarily been driving right at the edge in a car not truly on the pace. After an encouraging start to the season, Ferrari failed to keep pace with the developments other teams were introducing, and only in the last three races have decent innovations come through – in Montréal Fernando was right there, and only a couple of backmarkers kept him from threatening Hamilton in the late laps. In Valencia he was on Lewis’s tail, in third place, when the controversial safety car incident removed him from the reckoning. At Silverstone a drive-through penalty – also controversial – put him out of the points.

In Italy there is much talk of a crisis at Ferrari, and even speculation – misplaced, one hopes – about the future of Stefano Domenicali. Yes, the team has been through a very bad patch, but Alonso continues to insist that he can still be World Champion this year. He loves the team, and they him, but the time has come for a series of good results, and everyone knows it. I’m betting that Fernando will come on very strong through the balance of this season…

A Grand Prix victory for BMW, and for Robert Kubica, had been coming a while, and in Montreal – the scene of Kubica’s horrific accident 12 months ago – it duly did. “We certainly didn’t have the quickest car,” Kubica said. “In fact, in competitive terms, this wasn’t our strongest race, although definitely our best result.”

Indeed it was. While a win for Kubica wasn’t a total surprise, his team mate Nick Heidfeld has struggled for pace throughout this season, and a starting position of eighth didn’t promise much. As it was, though, Heidfeld was aided both by a safety car period (virtually inevitable at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve) and a strategy switch to a one-stopper, and in the end he made Mario Theissen’s day complete by finishing second.

Without wishing to sound disrespectful, the fact that David Coulthard’s Red Bull finished third says much about the sort of race this was. For the accustomed front runners, Montreal was something of a disaster, Ferrari scoring only four points (from Felipe Massa’s fifth place) and McLaren none at all.

In 2007 Lewis Hamilton completely dominated the Canadian Grand Prix, and this time around he looked set to do the same again. After taking a remarkable pole position (by six-tenths, no less), Hamilton took an immediate lead, and proceeded to pull away from Kubica and the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen. By lap 18 he led by seven seconds, and looked entirely comfortable, but a delayed decision to bring out the safety car (after Adrian Sutil’s Force India had expired in a dangerous spot) was to change the entire complexion of the day.

Once the pit lane had been declared open, all the front runners came in together, and for once a McLaren pit stop didn’t go particularly well. Kubica and Raikkonen were serviced more quickly than Hamilton, and the BMW and Ferrari were side by side as they headed for the exit of pit lane – where they stopped, in acknowledgement of a red light.

By the time he saw it – and took in that Robert and Kimi had stopped – Lewis had insufficient time to react, and ran into the back of the Ferrari, putting both cars out on the spot. “I have to thank Lewis,” observed Kubica dryly, “for choosing Kimi, and not me…”

Although the incident truly had been just one of those things, Raikkonen was understandably angry at being put out of the race this way, and Hamilton made no attempt to shirk responsibility, profusely apologising to him. Perhaps Sutil, who was taken out of the Monaco Grand Prix by Raikkonen, permitted himself a wry smile.

Coming into this race, Hamilton and Raikkonen were first and second in the World Championship, and if neither scored a point, Lewis lost more than Kimi in Canada, for on this occasion his McLaren was discernibly the best car in the place, and Montreal presented an opportunity to extend his points lead.

Nor was that the end of the bad news for Hamilton. After examining video evidence of the incident, the stewards announced after the race that both Lewis and Nico Rosberg (who, in his turn, ran lightly into the back of the McLaren) would be ‘fined’ 10 grid places at the next race, at Magny-Cours on June 22. When Raikkonen speared into Sutil at Monte Carlo, it will be remembered, no penalty was imposed: if McLaren folk were not as well balanced as they are, they might well start to get paranoid…

Although the first seven had pitted during the safety car period, those behind had stayed out, so when racing resumed, after three laps, the order board had a most unusual look about it: Heidfeld led, followed by Barrichello’s Honda, Nakajima’s Williams, the Red Bulls of Webber and Coulthard, the Toyotas of Trulli and Glock, Fisichella’s Force India and Vettel’s Toro Rosso.

All these, of course, had yet to make a stop, so the ‘true’ leader was Kubica, for the moment back in 10th place, stuck behind slower cars, and under some pressure from Alonso’s Renault.

Fernando has had few chances to figure seriously in a Grand Prix this season, but there is no feistier racer in the business. He wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to score some decent points, and for a time hassled Kubica.

“It wasn’t an easy situation,” Robert said. “I was stuck in slower traffic, which hadn’t yet pitted, and at the same time Fernando was pushing hard.”

Eventually, of course, that traffic began to dissipate, as drivers came in for fuel and tyres. Heidfeld gave up his lead on lap 29, at which point it was decided to switch him to a one-stop strategy. Fuelled up to go the distance, Nick now had a very heavy car, and he rejoined immediately in front of Kubica, who swiftly dispensed with him.

Now it was Heidfeld’s turn to come under pressure from Alonso, but that ended on lap 45 when the Renault made light, but terminal, contact with the wall.

Fernando is not one to make mistakes, but he, like everyone else, had found the track conditions very treacherous this day. During qualifying, the previous afternoon, the surface had begun to break up badly at three corners, one of them the hairpin. Some patching work was done that night, and more on race morning, but all the drivers were apprehensive about how it would hold during the race. “It was bloody hard,” remarked Coulthard. “Thankfully, it didn’t break up as badly as it had in qualifying, but still there was a lot of debris around. If you went even a little off line, you were effectively on loose gravel, and it just sucked you in…”

Once Alonso was gone, the BMWs were firmly established at the front of the pack, but Kubica, who still had another stop to make (where Heidfeld did not), was concerned about losing his lead when he came in.
“I’d lost so much time when I was stuck in the traffic, but fortunately I had a clear track by this time, and I realised I had eight laps – the time of my last stop – to build a lead of 21 seconds, which I’d need to stay ahead of Nick. It was like running a series of qualifying laps…”

He did it brilliantly, in fact building up an advantage of 24 seconds, and easily keeping his lead through the final stop. “After that, I was safe, and I didn’t push too hard – but still those last laps were difficult, because if you were off line you felt as though you were driving on sand…”

A superb first win, then, for both driver and team. Behind Heidfeld, Coulthard had his best finish of the season to date, and Timo Glock was thrilled to score his first points for Toyota, being narrowly ahead of Massa’s Ferrari.

Felipe, it must be said, drove a brilliant race in very difficult circumstances. He had qualified disappointingly, and took a while to get going, but was then unlucky to encounter fuel rig problems at his first stop. “A joint in the fuel line broke, and no fuel went in,” he said, “so I had to come in again on the next lap, and that dropped me right to the back…” After a very combative afternoon, Massa took an excellent fifth place, ahead of Trulli, Barrichello and Vettel.

The background to the Canadian weekend was – what else? – the vexed question of Max Mosley, and the apparent rift between the (at least temporarily) reprieved FIA President and the entire F1 community. We live in interesting times indeed, and not a few in the paddock wish them a little less so. The suggestion from one of his henchmen was that, since surviving the vote on June 3, Mosley had had no contact with Bernie Ecclestone – indeed had declined to take his calls. Was it really the case that they hadn’t spoken? Ecclestone said yes, it was. “At the moment,” a leading team principal commented, “Formula 1 is in very dangerous waters.”

Robert Kubica, though, reckoned he would start worrying about that on Monday.

So my ‘Mechanics Tales’ series is at least safe for a few months more. Damien (my Editor) is pleased, or relieved, one of the two.

1971 European F2 Championship. Cranleigh, Surrey, UK. 4th November, Rondel Racing F2 Team including L – R: Clive Walton, Ron Dennis, Neil Trundle and Preston Anderson.

I was encouraged to hear from Neil Trundle, a man who has been there, done it, got the t-shirts, the videos and the trophies. Neil established the Project 4 team with Ron Dennis, the outfit that built the ProCars for BMW, wowed the paddocks with its presentation and persuaded the mighty Marlboro to support its bid for the old McLaren team. The rest, as they say, is history.

Dutch Grand Prix, Zandvoort, Holland. 29th – 31st August 1980. Alain Prost (McLaren M30-Ford Cosworth), 6th position.

Neil still works with Ron, at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, where he’s in charge of the gearbox department. This is all to cut a very long story short but Mr Trundle has agreed to tell me a few mechanics tales so you will no doubt enjoy reading those in the months to come.

This week I’m going to see Neil Davis, who worked for Ken Tyrrell for many years and looked after the cars of Jackie Stewart. It was he who featured in our picture of the paddock tunnel at the (proper) Nürburgring last week. Meanwhile, in next month’s magazine, it will be the turn of David “Dorky” Lowe who is a protégé of both Neil Davis and Roy Topp at Tyrrell and who was terribly injured at Imola in 1996 when Jos Verstappen left the pits while Dorky was still re-fuelling the Arrows. But we’ll be looking at a happier phase of his life in the pitlane with Paul Stewart Racing when he looked after David Coulthard in Formula 3.

San Marino Grand Prix, Imola, Italy. 3rd – 5th May 1996. Jos Verstappen (Footwork FA17 Hart).

I won’t be in Monte Carlo this coming weekend but I will be glued to the television. This is absolutely one of my favourite Grands Prix, along with Spa-Francorchamps, Montreal and Monza. Well, and Suzuka, but that’s not every year now. Why do I love Monte Carlo? Because of the speed and the skill. You can feel the speed, get close to the cars for once, and you can only wonder the skill involved in threading a Grand Prix car around the streets. And the noise. Ah, that noise, as the cars scream around the Principality, the shriek of those engines ricocheting off the buildings. First thing in the morning it is just thrilling, makes the hairs on the back of your neck bristle.
Many years ago I watched a practice session in Monaco with Jenks. We stood behind the barrier at the old Tabac and at the swimming pool section. We could, if we’d been mad enough, have reached out and touched the cars. “You’ve got to realise,” he said, peering up at me through his spectacles, “that this place really shows you who is that bit special, who’s really got it. But even the cars at the back are quick, even the slowest drivers are going fast.”

I remember that every time I see these guys dancing and sliding around the streets, the best of them within millimetres of the barriers. Fantastic place.

Monaco Grand Prix, Monte Carlo, Monaco. 25th – 27th May 2007. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren MP4-22 Mercedes.

There may not be much overtaking but overtaking isn’t everything in motor racing. I’d rather watch no overtaking in Monaco than in Hungary or Malaysia, for example. I’d rather watch Hamilton or Raikkonen in Monaco than the whole field at Barcelona. And, it is possible to overtake in Monte Carlo. Not easy, but possible.