MPH: Mark Hughes on...

It's a time of anniversaries for the sport's two pre-eminent teams: 40 years since McLaren's first grand prix victory, 200 grand prix pole positions for Ferrari.

At a beautiful chateau a few minutes' drive from Magny-Cours, Ron Dennis was on hand at the launch of a new book, McLaren - The Cars 1964-2008. "It's not the definitive McLaren book," he said. "I hope one day to write something that contains many of the human stories of this team that I'm the custodian of. But it's an accurate record of every car McLaren has produced."

Later, Ron pointed out that the chateau would drive him mad - the grass wasn't cut neatly, some of the masonry was a little crumbly. And that little observation summarises how McLaren has been developed in his image - a striving for technical perfection, a style of cutting-edge modernity.

Think McLaren and you think of the stunning MTC building that houses it, a place that transports you to some vaguely disorienting future, existing in its own little bubble with no apparent relationship to the here and now.

It's so very different from Ferrari's base. There, it's like you've gone back in time. Yet the two teams do pretty much the same job, churning out cars that do pretty much the same lap time and which are yet again locked in battle for the world championship.

More similarities than differences

On the eve of Kimi Raikkonen's scoring the Scuderia's 200th pole, I spent some time at Maranello, enjoyed lunch with the chief of aerodynamics, Nicolas Tombassis, now in his second Ferrari stint, sandwiching a spell at McLaren. I ask him about the differences.

"The difference in ambience and style of facilities is pretty obvious. But actually, though they look so very different, there are more similarities than differences. We're using the same methodologies, attacking the same problems. The biggest difference is between how things were when I first came into F1 in 1987 [with Benetton], and now.

"I worked with two other people in my first aero department, now I work with over 100. The idea of ever writing a report on a windtunnel test or piece of research was considered just bureaucratic nonsense. Now it would be a disaster if you didn't fully report everything because there are so many people who need to know."

Tombassis moved from Benetton to Ferrari in '97, along with Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne. So he was there as the Scuderia was transformed into a team of the new era, expanding in size and scope and completely restructured. Brawn was the driving force, and did it supremely well, but it would have had to have happened whoever was there - it was the way the whole sport was going. So the Scuderia's facilities expanded, but within the existing site, built in 1972 across the other side of the road from the road car factory.

The Scuderia's main building takes you back to '72. It's sunny and the light and shade are falling perfectly to paint a picture that's pure nostalgia. The rectangular buildings, dark windows, slatted blinds, low ceilings, were cutting edge in '72. Because they look just as immaculate today as then, mustard yellow plaster pristine, glass gleaming, it feels like it is 1972, like you've been transported back there. Under the shaded entrance you wouldn't be surprised to see a young Jacky Ickx, Clay Regazzoni or Mario Andretti.

You imagine Clay, dark, chiseled features, sharp flared suit, has just driven down from Lugano at improbable speeds in his Daytona and stepped out into the car park, here to give the 312B2 a run on the new Fiorano track adjacent. The world had not a care and F1 was an impossibly glamorous place of jet set ease and luxury.

You walk inside, past an open door full of engineers. The faces of Aldo Costa, Luca Baldisserri etc reminds you this isn't '72, that you're looking at the 2008 brains trust of F1's most potent force.

They are in there having their final

pre-race brief, their Fiorano shakedowns done, all set to travel to Magny-Cours the next morning. Into another door and there's a beaming Stefano Domenicali, the boss, rising up to greet, effusive, charming, full of energy but above all, natural, easy, informal. He has the lightest touch yet directs this team with flair and focus. The contrast in style with predecessor Jean Todt is total.

"Last year, when we were embroiled in the espionage case," says a team member, "Jean was taking care of the political fallout from that and it would have been very easy for the race team to have lost focus, for issues of non-trust to have developed - and they could have had a devastating effect. It was Domenicali who kept everyone's eye on the ball, who kept us functioning as a team." It was confirmation that he would make a safe pair of hands as the boss.

I take a look around Fiorano, see the old farmhouse where Enzo Ferrari had his office, where he would work soothed by 12 wailing cylinders in the background. It's exactly as he left it, with pictures of drivers past on the walls, particular prominence given to Gilles Villeneuve. Upstairs is the apartment where Michael Schumacher used to stay when he was testing. Rubens Barrichello tried staying there once - but never again thereafter. There was a weird atmosphere about the place when you were alone at night, he said. Easy to believe.

It's also easy to believe the words of Luca Colajanni, the media relations chief. "It gets you, this place," he says. "You start off thinking it's just a factory and a race team. But it's more, there is a very special feeling about it and even when people leave that feeling never leaves them."

There's Regazzoni on the Cote d'Azur

In the evening I walk to the Cavallino restaurant, the place opposite the factory where the old man would take his lunch. I sit opposite a huge picture of Gilles circa 1980, a worried furrow in the brow above those bright, bright eyes.

I walk back to my hotel, switch on the TV - and there it is: a documentary on Regazzoni! Lots of early '70s footage, interviews with Ickx, Forghieri, Merzario. There he is on the Cote d'Azur looking overwhelmingly stylish in a way that's impossible to replicate in today's more ironic world. There's his 312B, deep red, gold wheels glinting in the sun. And there he is walking into that factory, spanking new then - and looking exactly as it had a few hours earlier. Delicious.