From the Pulpit

Michael Schumacher's task this coming weekend may not be an easy one, but it's undeniably simple: he must win.

That he will therefore move heaven and earth to do - and he'll probably do it. After all, Michael generally achieves what he moves heaven and earth to do.

But, the way Michael (and Ferrari) go about moving that heaven and that earth, his job description isn't in truth a unilateral one. Yes, in order to be champion, he must win; but Fernando Alonso must also fail to score. Be assured, therefore, that, whatever their protestations to the contrary, all at Maranello, including Schumi, have been bending their minds these past 10 days to the challenge of accomplishing both parts of that bilateral job description.

What's more, where once we could only make such a suggestion in a tentative way, we now have real evidence that their modus operandi includes such tactics.

It was supplied a few weeks ago by Norberto Fontana, who took nine long years to get off his chest what had been bugging him all that time: namely, that shortly before the 1997 European Grand Prix (the season's finale that year), Ferrari team principal Jean Todt had ordered him (Fontana) and his Sauber-Ferrari teammate (Johnny Herbert) to impede Schumacher's championship rival, Jacques Villeneuve, if and when they were lapped by him (Villeneuve) that afternoon.

Norberto Fontana © Reuters

Fontana did as bidden, and a quick search on YouTube unearths the offending clip in all its ignominy.

Who will get the Fontana gig at Interlagos? Let's hope that the discredit brought upon Todt by Fontana's allegations (which, of course, all at Ferrari deny) will deter the small but autocratic Frenchman from replicating the instruction this year.

But, if not, then there are no fewer than seven drivers whom he might see fit to instruct: his own Felipe Massa, obviously, but also all four Red Bull/Toro Rosso drivers (whose organisation will run Ferrari engines in two of its cars next year, just as the Red Bull RB2s have run them this year) and both Spykers (which will be Ferrari-powered next year, too). That's a third of the grid, dammit.

Yes, the Red Bulls will use Renault engines next year, too, but I don't believe that anyone at Enstone would dream of requesting that a driver from another team should take on the Fontana gig.

By contrast, despite the bad publicity that Fontana-gate brought upon them, Ferrari's bigwigs just might - and I say that not naively or even spitefully, as some "my country right or wrong" Schumi fans will assume I'm doing, but because it would be negligently naive of me, and/or of anyone else for that matter, not to be unnerved and, yes, forewarned by the sadly unflattering character reference of Todt embodied in Fontana's description of what he was allegedly required to do at Jerez nine years ago.

So, in Alonso's corner, we find... Giancarlo Fisichella, all on his own. A man who, on an out-lap during the recent Chinese Grand Prix, gave Schumacher room as he (Schumacher) daringly darted through on the inside of Turn 1, where a less sporting and more biddable driver would surely have turned-in on his teammate's championship rival.

A man who, although he still handles a Formula One car with exquisite natural finesse, has failed to maximise his Renault's performance these past two seasons and seems to have accepted being second-best - to Alonso, at least - with everything, in terms of an unwillingness to fight tooth-and-nail for track position, that goes with that status.

A man, indeed, who showed us all on the Suzuka podium that - as far as he was concerned, at least, and no one should blame him for it - there was, and is, more to life than winning world championships, or helping teammates win world championships. There was weeping for a dead friend, for instance.

Half an hour before being forced to watch that podium, having walked back into the Ferrari garage from his first engine failure for more than five years, Schumacher had made a point of hugging and high-fiving every mechanic he could find. It was an extraordinarily impressive act for a man who, deep inside, was surely weeping for his lost championship just as grievously as Giancarlo would later mourn his lost Tonino.

Michael Schumacher returns to the Ferrari garage after failing to finish the Japanese Grand Prix © Reuters

Or was it?

Apart from the fact that it was a very real outpouring of fellow feeling and team spirit - for Schumi has always been a superb motivator as well as a brilliant driver, and geeing-up the troops has always come naturally to him, and undoubtedly he would have wanted to show his boys that he blamed them not one jot for this most ill-timed of engine failures - surely Michael was also starting the process that he continued in remarks ascribed to him in Ferrari's post-race press release (and elsewhere, later, too).

For "I've given up on the championship now", read "I want Alonso to think I've given up on the championship now; and if he thinks it, it's just possible that he may be off his guard at Interlagos."

You don't win seven world championships, maybe eight, without thinking that way.

Or, as Williams director of engineering Patrick Head told F1 Racing in the aftermath of Monaco this year: "What I find remarkable is the mood of righteous indignation adopted by some people in the Ferrari team about what Michael sometimes does.

"I'm not one of the extreme ones calling for him to be kicked out of F1, but what this episode [Rascasse-gate] proves - just as Adelaide 1994 and a number of other occasions also proved - is that he isn't a sportsman in the sporting sense of the word.

"No, he has an overwhelming urge to win, and it seems quite clear that he doesn't care how he achieves that aim. But I'm just amazed that people are still surprised that he does these things, given his track record. This sort of behaviour is clearly just part of Michael's persona."

The key sentence in that typically trenchant PH sound-bite is, in my view: "He has an overwhelming urge to win, and it seems quite clear that he doesn't care how he achieves that aim."

So, listen up, Fernando: take great care when lapping Massa, the Red Bulls, the Toro Rossos and the Spykers this weekend. Oh, and don't 'impede' anyone or 'brake-test' anyone or shake your fist at anyone, either.

And if your path should happen to cross that of Tony Scott-Andrews, or any other FIA official, at any point throughout the weekend, make sure you give him a nice, friendly wave. Do that, and keep your nose clean, and mind how you go, and you'll end up having the last laugh.