Nigel Roebuck: Fifth Column

Crunch time, then, down to the wire, and every other cliche you can think of. At Interlagos on Sunday Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen will settle the destiny of the 2007 world championship: for the first time in 21 years three drivers are in contention at the final race of the season.

Back in 1986, the deciding grand prix was in Adelaide, and it surpassed all expectations, with the title apparently going the way of Nigel Mansell, then Nelson Piquet, and finally Alain Prost, who, although the best driver in the world at that time, had a McLaren-TAG comfortably outpowered by the Williams-Hondas, and was the least favoured to win the championship.

Of the three in with a shout this time around, Raikkonen, I have no doubt, will be in the most insouciant frame of mind as the weekend approaches. Kimi knows nothing else, after all. Seven points behind Hamilton, three behind Alonso, he need give little thought to 'tactics' - for him it's simple: whatever else, he must win the race.

And, given his scintillating form in recent weeks, you would be a fool to bet much against his doing that, however much it is anticipated that the track should slightly favour McLaren over Ferrari.

Last year's race, let's remember, was won consummately by Felipe Massa, who himself fell out of championship contention only recently. That being so, the expectation is that Massa will do all he can to 'help' Raikkonen this weekend - and doubtless the FIA stewards will be keeping a close eye on that particular scenario: team orders, after all, are banned now, as we all know.

To the best of my knowledge, however, no individual has been given the specific task of monitoring Ferrari in Brazil, so in that respect the team is in a different position from McLaren, for whom it seems no humiliation is too much.

Last week the FIA announced that an official will spend the Interlagos weekend overseeing the team, so as to ensure that Hamilton and Alonso receive equal treatment. McLaren, in effect, will have their very own scrutineer.

This development follows a meeting on October 3 between Max Mosley and Carlos Garcia, the president of the Spanish motorsport federation, at which Garcia evidently expressed concerns that Alonso might not get the same treatment as Hamilton.

"The FIA," said Garcia, "will have a steward at Interlagos making sure that nothing wrong happens to Fernando, especially in qualifying, which is where there have been complaints or strange situations in the last few grands prix."

In the last few grands prix... At the Hungaroring, where pole position is unusually crucial, Hamilton and Alonso did their best to scupper the chances of the other, which may have been unedifying, but affected no other team, and should have been resolved by a short, sharp, address by Messrs Dennis and Whitmarsh.

As it was, for reasons still unclear to many of us, the FIA stewards chose to get involved, and as a consequence Alonso - whose delaying tactic had been as subtle as a mallet - was docked five grid positions, and the team declared ineligible for constructors' points at that particular event. This last penalty seemed especially curious.

So livid was Alonso that the next morning he said his famous piece to Ron Dennis, effectively threatening that if Hamilton were not firmly put in his place, subservient to the great almighty world champion, the FIA would be learning one or two new facts about the 'Spygate' case which has so blighted what has otherwise been the best F1 season for years.

So that was Budapest. Since then we have had Istanbul (where Hamilton, unlike Alonso, chose the softer tyre, and qualified second, to his team-mate's fourth), Monza (where Alonso took the pole, with Hamilton second), Spa (Alonso third, Hamilton fourth), Fuji (where Hamilton, unlike Alonso, took a new set of tyres for his second run, and pipped him to the pole by seven-thousandths of a second), and Shanghai (Hamilton on pole, Alonso fourth). Strange situations?

China brought forth another Alonso rage - helmet hurled, door kicked off its hinges, etc. Had his race gone the way of Hamilton's the following day, doubtless he would have claimed that the team had deliberately kept him out too long.

A very curious fellow, Mr Alonso, that much is becoming abundantly clear. Interviewed by British TV and radio crews, he is calmness personified, apparently almost timid, but clearly he has rather more to say to his own countrymen, particularly when he is away from a race track.

Given that Alonso will not be a McLaren driver in 2008, whereas Hamilton emphatically will, it is only reasonable to assume that - even in normal circumstances - the team would much prefer Lewis to win the championship, and take number one into next season.

The circumstances, though, are not normal, for Fernando has passed up no opportunity to alienate himself from his team, and perhaps it is an awareness of this which made the gentleman from the Spanish federation so agitated.

McLaren, therefore, have a policeman in their pits this weekend, and I am not alone in thinking this despicable. Over time no F1 team has been as even-handed in its treatment of its drivers as McLaren, and the FIA's agreement to provide an official snoop sends out an appalling message to the world, and is grossly insulting to the sport as a whole. There again, gratuitous and unpleasant insults are much in vogue just now, as Jackie Stewart can tell you. Formula 1, it seems to me, has rarely been in a more spiteful state.

Given that this is apparently the way our sport is run these days, Jean Todt will rejoice that such was not the case five years ago, for he might otherwise have found the Ferrari pits overwhelmed by FIA personnel at the Monaco Grand Prix.

After all, had he not, a fortnight earlier, ordered a dominant Barrichello to allow Schumacher to pass on the run up to the chequered flag? And why? Because the sainted Michael had to win the world championship, and at that stage, four races into the season, had a lead of only 21 points. Rubens, Rubens, what were you thinking of? Why didn't you go crying to the Brazilian federation? Because you're a big boy, that's why.

Given the presence of Big Brother in the McLaren pit this weekend, the worry is that a quite inadvertent incident might be misinterpreted, blown up into something it is not. Botched pitstops, for example, are relatively rare, but they have always occurred, and they always will. If something of this kind should delay Alonso (or even Hamilton) on Sunday, will it be seen as an accident, or will a more sinister connotation be put on it?

In China Alonso suggested that he had qualified only fourth because his tyres had been incorrectly pressured - and clearly the dark inference was that Machiavelli had been operating the gauge. Again, once in a while tyres have always been wrongly pressured, because people are human, and occasionally they make mistakes.

Whatever else, therefore, I hope to God that something of this kind does not occur at Interlagos, because we don't want the world championship settled in an atmosphere of controversy and recrimination. Paranoia in F1 is anyway off the clock at the moment, and the stationing of a 'special steward' in one particular pit will do nothing to lessen it.

At this rate, presumably we're only a step away from the installation of CCTV cameras in the motorhomes. Then what? Speed bumps in the pitlane? Don't laugh...