Can Ferrari hold on to Alonso?

Just as a successful Formula 1 car is all about the 'package', so too a successful racing driver is the sum of all his characteristics.

To win at the very top it is not enough to just rely on natural talent, to just work hard or to put in place those things off the track that can help your team make you quicker on it. You need it all.

That was why it was fascinating, after a year when Fernando Alonso and Ferrari went through what can best be described as a 'shaky' period in their relationship, that the company's president Luca di Montezemolo marvelled at some specific aspects of world champion Sebastian Vettel's make up.

"Vettel. Very, very good," said di Montezemolo as he chatted to selected media during his annual Christmas lunch.

"I like his attitude because he is very positive, no manager, no politics in the middle. Nice approach. Quick. Concentrated. He wants to win."

While some of those latter characteristics are very true of Alonso, it was the singling out of 'no manager, no politics' that were intriguing. For they are two traits that we know are not true of Alonso.

Alonso's manager Abad sounded out a few of Ferrari's rivals © LAT

He has the influential team of Flavio Briatore and Luis Garcia Abad guiding him, and he certainly is a political animal.

But amid all the polemics of the season just gone and the rebuke Alonso got from di Montezemolo about his behaviour - plus the cloud of uncertainty about just how serious he was in his flirtations with Red Bull - the ultimate truth remained that driver and team still want the same thing: to be able to win together.

Di Montezemolo this week looked back at the events of 2013 and reckoned one of the key failures of the team was its lack of development over the second half of the season.

While costly for the championship, it was also the trigger for Alonso's frustration boiling over so spectacularly in Hungary, after turning up to find a car that had barely improved since the Spanish Grand Prix when his team realised that a development path taken since then had been wrong.

Yes, the change of tyres after the British Grand Prix and the inability of Felipe Massa to deliver the support that Alonso needs at the front were other factors that derailed the campaign, but ultimately Ferrari failed to keep up in the development race.

"Our problem number one was our capability to not develop the car," said di Montezemolo. "Tyres or no tyres. If, in the second half of the season, we had a more competitive car it would have been different."

But if Alonso's frustrations in the second half of the season were very real, as the inevitable defeat at the hands of Red Bull hit home, there were movements taking place behind the scenes to give some hope for the future that should alleviate the negatives.

Alonso has been fighting against faster Red Bulls since joining Ferrari © XPB

First of all the minor handicap of being forced to use a windtunnel (Toyota's in Cologne) several hours from its base should be eased as its own Maranello version is now back on tap. That should help speed up its development progress.

Furthermore, Ferrari realised that its organisation needing bolstering too, and it is the capture of James Allison from Lotus that di Montezemolo has singled out as a key element for the future.

"If I look in a very cold and realistic way at our situation, we have been poor in terms of facilities, windtunnel and simulator," he said. "We have been poor in terms of high level technical directors after a long, long period with Ross [Brawn] and Rory [Byrne].

"We have been poor in terms of aerodynamic attitude and approach in seasons in which aerodynamics were the key element.

"You can have the best engine, you can have the best gearbox, but aerodynamics make the difference. Now I think that all of the elements are in order.

"I like the decision to call back James Allison. As you know he was with us until 2004, he speaks Italian, he knows 80 per cent of the people in the team because the people who are in high positions were young at the time."

Allison is back in Ferrari colours © XPB

So while Ferrari appears to have done the work behind the scenes, the key factor is how it resolves the Alonso situation. Although in truth that will ultimately depend on how good the car is.

I asked di Montezemolo about his Vettel comments, and the fact that Alonso is political and does have the managers that he suggested could be a problem.

"Fernando is strong," replied di Montezemolo. "It is always difficult to make a comparison with the past, as the races are very different.

"But if you put together speed, the intelligence to understand the race, the capability in terms of avoiding mistakes in the races, I have to say Fernando is the best driver I have been with.

"With all respect to Michael [Schumacher], who has been fantastic but in a different time where it was more important to push and less important to save tyres, entering the pits. A different moment. We are talking about super heroes."

He added: "Fernando I like of him that he wants to win, this is important. I am not a driver but I am the same.

"I am more nervous when we win than when we lose, because when we win I always think that we have to push.

Alonso's intensity endears him to di Montezemolo © XPB

"Fernando is a guy that thinks day and night, and he is also good to use in terms of his point of view in how to improve the organisation that is close to him.

"I understand, I share, I told him that he wants to win and he was not able to, but he arrived second this year thanks to his capability rather than thanks to the car.

"On the other hand I want a driver that even in the difficult moments he gives outside and inside is very, very close to the team. This is the effort that I asked of him in the middle of the season. But I am very happy to have him on the team."

Alonso and Ferrari's future will be decided by the package.

If Ferrari gets back to the front next season, then Alonso will have no need to consider going elsewhere.

If the team does not deliver, then the lover's tiff that caused a media storm in 2013 could blow up into something much bigger.

The ball is in Ferrari's court.