Webber: Alonso's titles are good for F1

That is the view of Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber, who has no doubts that Alonso's talent and the manner in which he beat Schumacher have secured his place at the head of the field.

"The good thing is that Alonso is the double world champion," Webber told Australian newspaper The Age. "Fernando did the business in the last two seasons.

"Michael couldn't compete with him in 2005 because his tyres weren't as good as Renault's Michelins, but in '06, it was a good scrap once Ferrari got over their initial problems.

"It's great to know that in Fernando, we have on the grid the guy who rolled him. He's the new benchmark and that's good for the rest of us.

"If he weren't there, I'd be disappointed and all of us would feel a bit cheated. That's why it's great that another world champ came along while Michael was still racing."

Although Alonso's likely main rival for this year's world championship is Kimi Raikkonen, Webber believes that there are doubts about the new Ferrari driver's commitment to the job in hand.

"Every day of the week, Alonso is the benchmark," he said. "He's a more complete driver.

"Kimi was very unfortunate with reliability while he was at McLaren, but the way that Fernando lifted himself to take Michael on in the last few years has been an absolute credit and he's done an exceptional job, so I'd take Fernando."

Speaking about how Raikkonen will get on at Ferrari, Webber added: "Obviously, he's (Kimi) a different type of guy (to Schumacher). He's incredibly talented. Kimi will drive the cars as fast as Michael did, but I doubt that he'll be as involved in the team's operation.

"Clearly, Michael's a massive loss in terms of how hard he pushed the whole team. I think Kimi will fit in OK at Ferrari. I think the team has bigger issues than Kimi at the moment.

"In the end, I think he'll fit in all right, but I think the level of the whole team will drop off a bit. It won't be down to Kimi — it'll just be down to a combination of scenarios."