The European GP held in Valencia, race number 8 of an endless rosary which still has 12 to go before ending less than a month before Christmas, he said this: in command is Fernando Alonso, the only driver so far to have won twice, but above all a very clear-headed conquistador and in sensational form, guarantee number 1 of a Ferrari that started badly and is today almost as competitive as the best single-seaters. We are talking about single-seaters and not the team and with good reason: although disappointed at the beginning of the championship by the not excellent technical value of the F2012 single-seater, which was instead expected as the total weapon, the red team did not waste time in self-pity and put on track a mad and most desperate development.
In Formula 1, catching up on the best teams is a more than difficult undertaking: a team aiming for the world title must guarantee an average improvement of one tenth per race, calculated in lap time. Ferrari debuted in the championship with a negative gap close to half a second against McLaren and Red Bull; something less on Lotus (ex-Renault) and Mercedes, however also ahead of the Reds. To date, all or almost all of this disadvantage has recovered, and it's not that the opposing teams have skimped on technical progress, new parts, new ideas. The team is once again the most organized and precise: this year, this year, mistakes at the pit stop are almost exclusive to the British teams. And this also implicitly means that Ferrari has done its homework very, very well in view of the mid-season mark (it will be in Germany on 22 July).
To guarantee them well done on the track there is a certain Alonso. According to many, the best Alonso ever. Cold and analytical, almost immune from those errors, although rare in his luminous career. Fast and hungry for success almost as if the memory of his world titles (1995 and '96, with Renault managed by Briatore) sometimes fails him. Fernando tests and tackles qualifying, starts the race and tries to overtake, interprets tactics and always invents something new, something more: all with the ardor, grit and anger of a young driver who has to prove what he's made of. And instead Formula 1 knows very well who Alonso is: a champion tired of giving up the title at the end of the year; also fed up with a fast as a Ferrari driver that originated on a bizarre day in autumn 2010, when a colossal strategic error on the Cavallino wall forced him into an Abu Dhabi GP of pure depression, ending up giving away (the verb is not an exaggeration) that title to Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull. If that afternoon in the ocher tones of the Middle Eastern sunset had slipped in the direction that everyone expected, Alonso would have become champion in his first year at Ferrari. And instead…
instead the most global Formula 1 ever (this year there are more races in Asia than in Europe, and the return to the United States once again expands the globe of the GPs), literally reinvented by the single-tyre Pirelli which ensures races punctuated by tire changes and pace alternations, alternations of momentary superiority that they give lap records in bursts and with ever new names, look directly to the future on the certainties of the new-that-advances in Ferrari red. The least new imaginable: none of the teams on the track today existed in 1950, when the World Championship got underway and the Prancing Horse was already in the field. And yet, all of Formula 1 is once again looking on with fear at this novelty in Italian sauce. After 7 races won by as many different riders, in Valencia Alonso was the first to blacken his second personal box with 25 of the full points. And he succeeded with a Ferrari once again grinding times and putting anxiety on the shoulders of those preceding it, perhaps even breaking mechanical parts (in an F.1 in which retirements due to failure are now rare) just as happened in Valencia at the Vettel's Red Bull first and then Grosjean's Lotus.
That's why we talk about new-that-advances. Which, in summary, it is the red-that-advances. With confidence, feet on the ground and no fear of killing yourself with work. A certain Alonso will take care of the rest.
