Chilled on a chilly day

Sunday's Australian Grand Prix dished up conditions that F1 teams seldom have to deal with - unseasonably cool weather. Where Bahrain and Malaysia had provided hot and steamy racing, testing engine longevity to the utmost, Australia posed a different challenge of how to generate the near-boiling temperatures needed to generate maximum grip from the tyres.

The green track and cool weather are conditions unlikely to be repeated this season, and it would be easy to dismiss Sunday's race as a freak. Yet it is these one-off events that test the drivers' and teams' adaptability to the limit, and often serve to separate the championship wheat from the chaff.

It's the sort of conditions in which Michael Schumacher and Ferrari used to excel. Now, Fernando Alonso and Renault have taken over this role, and are doing a magnificent job of it.

Alonso has become a champion in the Schumacher mould. He doesn't need to be the fastest driver at all times, nor the most exciting, nor the most reliant on victories. Instead, he has perfected the Schumacher principle of being on the dance-floor at all times, and letting the law of averages take care of the rest.

On a day characterised by terse, urgent and scathing communications between drivers and pits, a single public broadcast of the Alonso radio channel told the whole story. Alonso reassured his pit crew that everything was OK, he was quite relaxed. To which his race engineer replied that he was pretty chilled himself.

Considering that Alonso had seen several substantial leads during the race eradicated by the safety car, it would have been understandable if he'd shown irritation or impatience. Instead, the reigning champion has learnt that such swings of fortune go with the territory and that it doesn't help to bemoan cruel fate. He just puts his head down and gets on with the job at hand.

It was immediately reminiscent of the form that Michael Schumacher showed in 2002 and 2004 - reeling in victories and podium finishes with monotonous regularity while the opposition evaporated and self-destructed around him.

Schumacher didn't need to get pole and fastest lap while leading each race wire to wire. Often, all he needed to do was pitch up and keep the car out of the gravel traps. The opposition's self-doubt and unreliability would do the rest.

There had been some doubt, prior to the season start, of whether Alonso could take his consistent form of 2005 into the new season. Last year, he found himself with a sizeable championship advantage after just a handful of races, achieved largely by default as Ferrari failed to find form and McLaren failed to finish races.

Surely, in a new season with the leading cars more closely matched than ever and without a handy advantage right from the start, Alonso would at least show some vulnerability and human frailty?

The Spaniard's answer has been resounding, and resoundingly successful. Alonso doesn't need a huge championship lead to drive smart, pressurise the opposition and take the maximum from every opportunity. Instead, it has become his stock in trade. It is the hallmark of a champion, and it has put his 2006 rivals under immediate and unenviable pressure.

Already, just three races into the new season, Alonso is separating the genuine contenders from the wishful thinkers. First to wilt was Honda's Jenson Button. Or rather, Honda and Jenson Button.

It beggars belief that a team which showed such promise in pre-season testing, and which has qualified Button ahead of Alonso at every Grand Prix so far this year, should have thrown in the towel so early. Yet there is no other way to interpret Honda's decision to order Button to sacrifice three points on Sunday.

If the championships of the 2003 and 2005 seasons illustrated one central principle, it is that every single point counts. There were times in both seasons when the eventual runner-up, McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen, would have killed to have an extra three points.

If a driver can afford to turn his nose up at three precious world championship points, then he's either so dominant or so outclassed that it doesn't matter. It's not hard to figure out which of the two extremes applies to Honda and Button currently.

Jenson Button's Honda fails in the final turn of the final lap © Peter van Egmond/LAT

Honda's reasoning is ostensibly sound. Taking three points at Melbourne would have entailed an engine change and a ten-place grid penalty at Imola, one of their best circuits. They would rather sacrifice the points and give Button a better shot at winning in San Marino.

That's well and good, but it also shouts from the rooftops that Honda do not believe they can run with Alonso over the course of a season. They do not believe that Renault or Alonso might, or even can, fail. The best they can hope to take from the 2006 season is a maiden victory or two, for Button and for themselves since their re-entry as a full team rather than just an engine supplier.

That would be a perfectly acceptable and reasonable proposition for BMW or Red Bull Racing. It might even be deemed acceptable for Toyota. For a team that racked up so many podiums in 2004, and looked so promising in pre-season testing, it is an early admission of defeat.

Button is one of the most consistent and dependable drivers in the field. He is custom-built for the demands of the modern championship, which places consistency above the ability to race wheel-to-wheel with all-comers. If Honda just want to win the odd race or two (for now), they'd be better off with McLaren's Juan Pablo Montoya.

Montoya himself has been another early victim of Alonso's pressure. In recent seasons, the Colombian has made a habit of looking listless and disinterested over the opening races, only to explode into his most volatile form later in the year - when it's too late. In 2005, he had the excuse of a broken shoulder. Although, even before the injury, he looked completely distracted.

After similarly disinterested performances in Bahrain and Malaysia to kick off this season, it was only a matter of time before Montoya rediscovered his explosive and headline-grabbing form. Alas, in Melbourne, it was for all the wrong reasons.

A tank-slapper-cum-spin compromised his chances in qualifying, followed by a spin on the formation lap, another spin behind the safety car, another tank-slapper to jar his McLaren's electrics into mute surrender, and then a lengthy rant against his employer and teammate to round out the weekend.

It's the sort of display that must have had Alonso chuckling to himself after the race. Of his three main championship rivals - Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen and his own teammate Giancarlo Fisichella - Raikkonen must be viewed as the hungriest and most dangerous. The last thing Raikkonen needs is an incensed and resentful Montoya alongside him.

After Fisichella followed up his victory in Malaysia by out-qualifying Alonso again in Melbourne, it seemed (fleetingly) as though the champion might at last experience some genuine competition from within the team.

Alonso might also have suspected that he didn't need to do anything about the threat - Fisichella's mechanical misfortunes would do the work for him. Almost predictably, that's exactly how it panned out.

After a woeful race, in which his engineer chided him (in front of the entire global television audience) for not being as fast as Alonso, it emerged that Fisichella had again suffered a range of car problems, including a loss of telemetry, severe understeer and a failed clutch.

The Italian's disastrous luck again earned him the empathy of most in pitlane. Alonso will gladly grant Fisichella all the empathy in the world. As long as the Spaniard keeps collecting the silverware, it's an arrangement that suits him perfectly.

Michael Schumacher walks away from his crashed Ferrari on lap 33 © LAT

That left Michael Schumacher who, like Button, Montoya and Fisichella, had a race that he'd rather forget. Of all Alonso's rivals, Schumacher is in a unique position - he's the only one who has been in Alonso's situation, and knows exactly how Alonso feels.

It was a telling gesture that Schumacher avoided the temptation to launch into complaints and excuses. He stated flatly that he hadn't the pace early on, and when he did find the pace later, he'd blown it with a driver error.

Schumacher heard plenty of complaints and excuses during 2002, how his rivals could have and would have and should have given him a stiffer challenge, if only... Schumacher knows just how reassuring it will be for Alonso to hear the long list of excuses, because it's a positive reinforcement of just how badly he's rattled the field.

Schumacher will not grant the Spaniard that luxury. Instead, he'll acknowledge the lost opportunity, file it away mentally, and arrive in San Marino with renewed and quiet commitment to exercise payback on the championship leader and shrink the deficit. Schumacher, ultimately, continues to make his own luck.

Alonso has yet to start a 2006 GP from the front row of the grid. He should not have been allowed to build a 14-point lead - with double the points tally of his nearest rival - so early in the season.

That he has done so, with so little fuss and with such apparent ease, is a sure indication that 2005 was no fluke. With a chilled performance on a chilly afternoon in Melbourne, Fernando Alonso removed any lingering doubts about his championship pedigree.