MPH: Mark Hughes on...

So if you were Ferrari, what would you be thinking in terms of your future driver line-up? Kimi Raikkonen says he fully intends to honour his contract, which runs to the end of 2009. Felipe Massa is committed until then too.

Fernando Alonso is keen to come on board and there are those in Italy adamant that he has already signed some sort of agreement to join from 2010. Then there's Robert Kubica, maybe the perfect Ferrari driver, waiting to be asked.

Would you be fully content with Raikkonen? He's still very much in contention for a second consecutive world title. But he's maybe making harder work of it than Ferrari believe he should be.

Half the time he's being out-performed by his much cheaper team-mate and partly because of this it's increasingly apparent that he's really not a full Michael Schumacher replacement - if there could ever be such a thing. There's not the same total commitment to the job, little of the inspirational dig-deep leadership when it could really make a difference.

Kimi's getting lost on set-up

On the other hand, on his good days he's mighty and furthermore he really is very low maintenance. With his dimmer switch to the outside world turned way down low, he's a calming presence in the team. And in a high-pressure situation - a close title-decider perhaps - he's probably the safest pair of hands in the business, certainly way less hair-trigger than Schumacher in the same situation.

He also keeps his own counsel, never says anything that could ever be construed as negative about the team. According to sources inside the team, it was this latter point that was the decider when they were considering whether Raikkonen or Alonso should be Schumacher's long-term replacement.

Even when that decision was being made in 2005, there were signs Alonso's loyalties were more to himself than his team, and he wasn't averse to being publicly critical.

But in 2008, with a car the team believes is the most competitive it's built since '04, there is questioning from some quarters about whether the drivers are doing the car full justice. For the last two races Kimi has got lost on set-up and compromised his weekend as a result.

If he wasn't so careful never to criticise, however, he might counter that the car's sweet spot is too narrow, that it's all too easy to lose set-up direction. Its reluctance to get its front tyres up to temperature quickly enough hurts his style, one that demands a grippy front end.

It's too simplistic to say he can't deal with understeer. It was his ability to do just this that allowed him to blow away Juan Pablo Montoya in the first half of 2006. But that was on grippy tyre-war Michelins.

Yes, the '06 McLaren understeered but the tyre had a very sharply defined limit before it stalled and Kimi was superb at hitting that spot, taking in just enough entry speed and putting on just enough lock first time with devastating precision. It's something Montoya couldn't do.

The current Bridgestone by contrast is very forgiving; there is not much penalty for going just over or just under that grip peak. That peak spot isn't so obvious and even when you hit it, there isn't a great lap-time reward. Kimi is left with the downside of a balance he doesn't like and no upside.

In 1973 Emerson Fittipaldi's previously huge reputation took a bit of a battering when he was comprehensively outpaced at Lotus by new team-mate Ronnie Peterson. Emerson was adamant the change from Firestone to Goodyear changed the Lotus 72 in such a way as to make it totally unsuited to his driving style - and perfect for Peterson's. Has Bridgestone's supply tyre done the same to Raikkonen's reputation as the Goodyear did to Fittipaldi's?

One mistake from Massa generates another

Whatever, Ferrari may feel a true master F1 driver would adapt himself more readily than Raikkonen has done; sluggish front-tyre warm-up has been a characteristic of Ferraris for years. In short, maybe Ferrari feels this mixture is too shaky a basis to commit its future to.

Then there's Massa, the enigma. He's less sensitive to the car's tyre temperature problems in that he can carry a lot of momentum up to the apex with an understeering car - which is what you get during qualifying when the front tyres don't come up to optimum temperature. His entry speed is less demanding of the front end; he accepts what he's got and keeps the momentum.

And there are weekends when he's the clear number one. He's more highly strung, and sometimes that's a good thing; it plays its part in his best performances. But other times it can snowball into repeated errors. He doesn't seem relaxed about his status and as such doesn't readily generate that status, making it a vicious circle.

When he makes a mistake, his head can fill with red, the objective gets forgotten - and he makes another one. It doesn't happen as often as his reputation might suggest. But it does still happen. And this is his seventh year in F1. He's a great guy to have on the team: popular, hard-working, passionate, apolitical.

But he's not a rock-solid leader for a team expecting to be fighting for world championships. He's a great back-up to such a man though. The fact that Raikkonen has not established himself as that man puts the whole thing on shaky ground.

The perception of Alonso or Kubica - both of whom are at ease with the sort of understeer balance a Ferrari is likely to give in qualifying - is that they would have no such trouble. Maybe they would make the team a less serene place. But maybe that is what's needed - someone unwilling to accept anything other than being the focus of the whole mission. But in that case it would probably be unwise to contract Alonso and Kubica.

It all emphasises that for title-chasing teams, having too closely matched a driver pairing is rarely good. You need a car with a massive margin of superiority to make it an asset. Otherwise, you need a clear number one and a guy quick enough to push, but not trouble, him.

The pairing of Raikkonen/Massa initially looked to fit that bill, yet it's not turned out that way. The chemistry is so sensitive - a tyre warm-up issue could be the difference between the line-up working brilliantly or not at all - and there's no real way of knowing in advance how it might play out.

So, coming back to the original question. What would you do if you were Ferrari?