Nigel Roebuck: Fifth Column

When Andrea Montermini crashed his Simtek in practice at Barcelona in 1994, everyone held their breath. As the car came to rest, there was no sign of movement in the cockpit, and when screens were erected - to thwart the prying eye of TV cameras - we began to worry.

Formula 1 was in a jittery state at that time, and for good reason. Four weeks earlier, Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger had been killed at Imola; two weeks earlier, Karl Wendlinger had been grievously injured at Monaco.

Suddenly it seemed impossible to come out of an accident unscathed, and after years of substantial progress in motor racing safety, the effect was bewildering. In the paddock I came across a leading driver who seemed close to hysteria: "He's dead! He's dead!" he cried in reference to Montermini.

Thank the Lord, that wasn't so. The Italian rookie soon came round and was taken to hospital. Apart from injuries to a foot and a cut face, he was fine. Lucky, though. He had crashed at the last corner, a fast right-hander, and there wasn't a great deal of run-off there.

Over time that was improved, but the turn remained a place where you didn't want go off, and now has been fundamentally changed, with a left-right chicane where the quick corner used to be. From an aesthetic point of view, that's a shame, and one always regrets the loss of yet another fast corner. "For a driver," said Fernando Alonso, "that was an extremely good corner, and very challenging."

Still, he added, the change might make for a more exciting race for the spectators. With aerodynamics the way they are these days, it was impossible for one car closely to follow another through the quick turn and on to the main straight, which made it difficult to get close enough to outbrake into the next corner.

Times without number we have seen the electrifying, side by side, footage of Senna and Nigel Mansell at that point in 1991, but there hasn't been much like it since.

The hope is that, as the cars will be accelerating out of a slow chicane on to the pit straight, aerodynamics will have little part to play, and perhaps overtaking at the first turn will be more prevalent than in the past.

As well as modifying the track, the organisers at the Circuit de Catalunya have installed more grandstands this year, so as to accommodate Alonso supporters.

Time was when there was no need to worry about your flight on Sunday evening, for getting out of the track was the work of a moment. The crowds tended to be middling; it was to the bike races that they flocked, for Spain always had its Dani Pedrosas.

It wasn't until Alonso came along that it at last had a world-class grand prix driver, and his ascension has made the country rabid for F1. In recent years the stands have been a mass of blue, everyone kitted out in Renault shirts, now presumably replaced by the grey of McLaren.

All this sits well with Alonso, for of course he relishes the support of the crowd, which he delighted last year by squarely beating Michael Schumacher. In another way, though, it has become a pain. For some drivers, it wouldn't be too much of a problem, but our world champion is a reluctant star.

"Fernando's a very well-rounded individual," says Ron Dennis. "He's extremely private - in fact, his desire for privacy is probably higher than I've ever seen in a racing driver before. When we were getting to know each other, he looked me in the eyes one day, and said, 'I don't want to be famous', and he was absolutely sincere.

"Obviously he has a difficult time in Spain - when you look at the polls, he's miles ahead of everybody. He can't go anywhere, or do anything - and at the same time he's passionate about being in Spain, because that's where he's grown up. So it's not easy for him." Not easy for him, either, is the situation he finds himself in with his team-mate. In the past, they have not troubled him too much: occasionally, in the Renault days, Trulli or Fisichella would outqualify him, but in the course of four seasons Fernando puts 15 wins on the board, Jarno and Giancarlo three between them.

No worries there, then, but Renault personnel noted that when, for whatever reason, Alonso was slightly outpaced by a team-mate, he didn't respond particularly well, perhaps letting it get to him more than he should.

There is nothing unusual about this: Rubens Barrichello once told me he was amazed how upset Michael Schumacher would get if shaded by his team-mate. "With all that Michael's won and the ability he has," said Rubens, "you'd think he'd be absolutely secure..."

So you would, but maybe it's the really great ones who suffer most in this respect. If you are perceived to be the best, after all, and someone in an identical car presumes to challenge you seriously - let alone beat you - sooner or later that perception will start to fade.

Once in a while even Schumacher was outpaced by a team-mate, but throughout his career Michael took great care to make sure he wasn't partnered by an established superstar, and Bernie Ecclestone, for one, always regretted that. "I thought that was oddly insecure of Michael. I'd say to him, 'Look, it wouldn't matter who was in the other car - you'd beat him', but...

"For years the cars were so good that the only person who might beat him was someone else in a Ferrari, and when that person wasn't allowed to beat him - and, worse than that, was riding shotgun for him - people didn't have the respect for Michael that perhaps they should have done. I doubt that anyone would have beaten him, in equal cars, but we'll never know, will we?"

When it came to his racing career, Schumacher was a master at eliminating 'things that could go wrong', and one of those, potentially, was an ultra-quick team-mate. Perhaps he had noted what happened at McLaren when Alain Prost, around whom the team had for long revolved, was joined by Ayrton Senna. In this situation, unless you're fortunate - as were Lotus, when Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson were there - egos can get very fragile very quickly, and over time the relationship between Prost and Senna degenerated into civil war.

One thing, though, to have your status threatened by another star, quite another by a rookie. Since the retirement of Schumacher, few would question Alonso's standing as the best driver in F1, and, proud man that he is, it must be difficult to come to terms with the almighty pace shown thus far by Lewis Hamilton.

In Melbourne Fernando just got the better of him, and at Sepang turned in the kind of muscular victory we saw so often in the two seasons past. But in Bahrain Hamilton had discernibly the upper hand, particularly on race day, and that has to have had an effect.

"I relish the problem of having to separate two competitive drivers who are pushing each other," said Dennis, when Juan Montoya joined Kimi Raikkonen at McLaren. "That's a great problem to have!"

I'm sure Ron feels the same now about Alonso and Hamilton, and quite right too. Not for a second do I anticipate a potential Senna-Prost situation, or anything approaching it, but still it is one which will need careful handling, as Ron knows better than anyone: since Bahrain, a lot of McLaren press material has been glowing in its praise of its double world champion. This weekend, before his own people, Alonso will be very keen to reassert himself.