A fresh start for Alonso with Ferrari

Whether he’s just unlucky or whether he actively courts controversy, Fernando Alonso has certainly had an interesting career to date.

This year the double world champion joins Ferrari and is clearly relishing the new working environment after a turbulent time with McLaren and Renault.

“My father always told me this would happen," Alonso told the Guardian. "He said, ’If you race for Ferrari then you can retire. Your life is complete.’ So after I won my two championships for Renault I said, ’I’m happy now – my career is complete.’ And he said, ’No, no, if you drive for Ferrari people will forget the championships. They will remember you as a Ferrari driver.’ I said, ’Okay, Papa, we’ll see.’ Now I think he was right. Ferrari gives you a special feeling."

After taking his second championship with Renault in 2006, Alonso joined then rookie Lewis Hamilton at McLaren Mercedes on a multi-year deal. It was a marriage made in hell and just a few races into the season, it was clear that Alonso was unwilling to accept equal status, claiming that as champion, the team should put their efforts behind him and not Hamilton.

The infighting reached its public peak at the Hungarian Grand Prix where Alonso deliberately scuppered Hamilton’s qualifying hopes. He was later penalised for his actions but now the Spaniard believes that the disruptive season was actually good for his long-term career.

"2007 was very difficult but I learnt a lot personally,” he admits. “It was good for my career to take that step of joining them and growing up. I learnt how to work with a team and also to withstand the media pressure.

"The difficulties I had were coming from the team and the media. Now I am much more prepared for everything in Formula One – and in life as well. But at the time McLaren and Ferrari were fighting each other and it was very close. In the end I think we had the better car but we finished ¬second and third. Unfortunately we did something wrong."

A return to Renault followed and in Singapore, he recorded a superb victory for the team courtesy of a timely safety car period triggered by team-mate Nelson Piquet. The incident has been well documented elsewhere, but it resulted in Alonso’s mentor and manager Flavio Briatore being ousted from the team - clearly still a subject Alonso is not particularly comfortable talking about.

“Crash-gate was not easy," he said. "Flavio is a friend. I have been working with him many years now. It is in the past.”

Now Alonso is about to start his first season with Ferrari alongside Felipe Massa and he is looking forward to a healthy battle for supremacy within the team and is keen to dampen down reports of early friction between himself and the Brazilian.

"After so many years of course I have battled with Felipe,” he said. “It’s the way it is and we’ll keep having these fights. But Michael Schumacher and Rosberg will have fights at Mercedes. I am sure Lewis and Jenson Button will have fights. Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel will have fights at Red Bull. In fact they were fighting last year already. But no one talks about this. They talk about it with Ferrari because we are in a good position..."