Alonso and Ferrari's season of discontent

The 2013 Formula 1 season started so promisingly for Fernando Alonso and Ferrari. After last year's near-miss, which owed more to the Spaniard's virtuosity than the qualities of the '12 car, the new F138 was talked up as a bold, aggressive design. This was the car that would drag the struggling Scuderia closer to Red Bull.

But it wasn't. What's more, Ferrari's struggles led to acrimony with its star driver. After two wins in the first five races, things took a turn for the worse.

A season that started so well ended with Alonso seriously interested in a return to McLaren in the future, having been publicly dressed down by Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo in July.

Most tellingly of all, Alonso was out of title contention with three races to go as the Sebastian Vettel/Red Bull steamroller rumbled on.

FEBRUARY 1-MARCH 3: PRE-SEASON PROMISE

"The main thing is to make available to Fernando and Felipe [Massa] a competitive car. I don't think we can expect a car that is much faster than the others - this would be a fantasy."

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali's pre-season targets were realistic. Given the resources at Maranello's disposal, there's no reason why Ferrari should not be challenging. But even during testing there were reasons for concern.

For starters, its Maranello windtunnel was still out of commission - with work being done in Toyota's state-of-the-art example in Cologne - and would not reopen until October after upgrades.

Testing seemed promising © LAT

Then there was the simulator. Ex-McLaren tester Pedro de la Rosa was recruited at Alonso's recommendation to help improve its driver-in-loop technology and drove on the final day of the first test at Jerez. "We have a lot of work to do," was his summary of the situation.

The car was brisk and caught the eye on long runs, but there were tell-tale signs that the overall level of rear grip wasn't as high as the Red Bull's.

"The target was to reduce the gap we had in Brazil [at the end of last year], which was seven or eight tenths," said Alonso at the final test. "I hope we have reduced that gap and that we arrive in Australia [for the opening round] in a bit better shape than in Brazil, which means 200 times better than last year."

MARCH 24: MALAYSIAN DISASTER

After finishing second in Australia behind Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus and one place ahead of Vettel's heavily tyre-limited Red Bull, things began to unravel for Alonso in a damp start in Malaysia.

Malaysia went wrong early on © XPB

He tapped the back of Vettel's car at the second corner, deranging his front wing. That was Alonso's mistake. But Ferrari opted to leave him out in the hope he could make it to the point where intermediate rubber could be swapped for slicks at the same time as changing the nose. At the start of lap two, the wing collapsed as Mark Webber's Red Bull passed him, plunging Alonso into the gravel.

APRIL 14: CHINA TRIUMPH

At the peak of Red Bull's tyre complaints, Alonso executed an immaculate victory in China, while Vettel finished fourth after deciding against a Q3 run to allow him to start on the medium-compound Pirellis. It left Ferrari's star only nine points behind Vettel. Not that Alonso was counting his chickens.

"It's a little bit too early to say... we need to wait for after the summer break," he said, presciently, of his title hopes.

APRIL 21: IN A FLAP IN BAHRAIN

The Bahrain GP started encouragingly for Alonso, until he suffered a problem with the DRS being stuck open. After a pitstop to fix it, the fault repeated, despite Ferrari's confirmation that he could use the DRS again. After another unscheduled stop, he recovered to finish eighth. More points had gone begging.

"It's a bit unfortunate, because with the performance that Fernando had today we could have done an incredible job," said Domenicali. "I don't want to say that we would have been able to win because it's easy to say, but theoretically it was possible."

A home win in Spain suggested the title bid was coming along nicely © XPB

MAY 12: SPANISH WIN

Alonso's victory at the Circuit de Catalunya, thanks partly to a superb getaway and then a ballsy pass around the outside of Lewis Hamilton at Turn 3, and partly to an aggressive four-stop strategy, suggested that Ferrari was well and truly in the championship mix.

JUNE 9: DEVELOPMENT DIRECTION GOES AWRY

Up until the Canadian GP, Ferrari's development rate looked perfectly respectable. But a new topbody and rear-end tweaks did not deliver as hoped, and were a major setback in terms of development direction.

The die was cast for months of changes best described as a mixed bag as Ferrari struggled to get the rear end of the car to work well with the rest of it.

The pace of the car at low-downforce Spa and Monza with a trimmed-out rear wing suggested that getting the front and the back of the car to 'talk' was a problem, for when the front wing was simplified the rear end worked far better.

JUNE 30: SILVERSTONE TYREAGEDDON

The spate of tyre failures that took the British Grand Prix to the brink of being red-flagged was not good news for Ferrari. It led to the control Pirelli tyres being changed to a hybrid of 2013 compounds and the 2012, Kevlar-belted, construction.

Massa was one of the drivers affected by the Silverstone tyre failures © XPB

"We won in China, we won in Spain and then we seemed to lose a little bit of performance, especially when the 2012 Pirelli tyres came back," said Alonso after finishing a distant second to Vettel in Singapore. "When they changed the tyres, we said bye-bye."

Some have interpreted this as a grand conspiracy, as Pirelli caving into Red Bull's lobbying to change the tyres. While the tyre change certainly helped Red Bull by removing an inhibiting factor that made it impossible for the RB9 to show its full potential, it was safety concerns that led to the tyre change, not politics.

Ferrari engineering director Pat Fry refuses to use the tyres as an excuse. He accepts that the car simply wasn't fast enough all season. The early tyres merely narrowed the gap on race pace because Red Bull had to hold back, while the different shape of the tyre actually meant Ferrari gained a very small amount of downforce.

"Obviously, the shape of the tyre has a reasonable effect on the aero, but I don't think it's anything like that," said Fry when asked whether the tyre change had compromised the car's balance or aerodynamics. "In reality, we've needed to raise our pace all year but all we've done is hold the gap.

"On race pace, once the change was made to the tyres it did make us struggle a bit more, but that was for us to engineer out. The bottom line is that our car has not been quick enough in qualifying all year."

The writing was on the wall; the tyre change just made it harder for Alonso and Ferrari to hang onto Vettel's coat tails.

JULY 29: ALONSO PUBLICLY REBUKED

This year's Hungarian GP will be remembered as a watershed in the relationship between Alonso and Ferrari. There, Alonso's manager, Luis Garcia Abad, was glimpsed in conversation with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. The topic of Alonso's potential availability was discussed.

Di Montezemolo was outspoken in his criticism of Alonso © XPB

Di Montezemolo used a throwaway quip from Alonso about wanting his rivals' car for his birthday as the basis for an astonishing public attack. Issued via the Ferrari website, there was no misinterpreting what this meant.

"All the great champions who have driven for Ferrari have always been asked to put the interests of the team above their own," said di Montezemolo. "This is the moment to stay calm, avoid polemics and show humility and determination in making one's own contribution, standing alongside the team and its people both at the track and outside it."

Just to underline it, Ferrari's statement referred directly to Alonso's comments "which did not go down well with Montezemolo, nor with anyone in the team". Things between team and driver would never be the same again.

SEPTEMBER 11: RAIKKONEN RETURNS

The re-signing of 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen from Lotus achieved two things for Ferrari; it strengthened its driver line-up and clipped Alonso's wings. No longer could he see the team as his exclusive domain. While publicly supportive, by reading between the lines of his comments it was clear that he wanted the subordinate Massa to stay on.

"In terms of speed, Felipe is not any slower," Alonso said in Japan. "When they were racing together [in 2007-09], Felipe was as quick as him."

Alonso saw no reason why Massa should be ditched © XPB

During discussions over the driver line-up, it is understood that the prospect of dropping Alonso altogether was discussed before common sense prevailed.

OCTOBER 27: DOWN AND OUT

Alonso's title hopes had faded long before Vettel's Indian Grand Prix victory. But this was the race where the Spaniard was finally knocked out of mathematical contention.

Speaking two races earlier, in Korea, Alonso had made it very clear that he felt he had dragged the Ferrari to greater heights than it deserved. Although, characteristically, he phrased it in a way that allowed him to deny doing so!

"If someone had started watching F1 today or yesterday, and you told them that the red car with the blue helmet is fighting for the world championship now and is still in second place, they would say, 'It can't be true - it's a miracle,'" said Alonso.

THE FUTURE

For now, Alonso remains committed to Ferrari. He is contracted until the end of 2016, and under certain circumstances he could break free earlier. If predictions about Ferrari's engine struggles in '14 are on the money, there's no question he could move to McLaren for '15 with Honda support.

It just shows how much can happen in nine months. The idea of the Ferrari/Alonso alliance breaking down and a return to McLaren was unthinkable. Now, it's a strong possibility.