Ferrari's fortunes may rise again ‘if and when’ Fernando Alonso joins the famous Italian team. That is the opinion of David Coulthard, who in his column for the Daily Telegraph newspaper was less than complimentary about the contribution to a Formula One team of his former McLaren team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.The Maranello-based team is enduring its worst start to a season since 1981, having attended the first three races of 2009 without collecting a single point.
"I don't know Felipe Massa that well, so I can't really comment too much on him, but Raikkonen is a former team-mate of mine and the Finn has never shown me he can lead a car's development," Coulthard, now attending Grand Prix as Red Bull's reserve driver as well as a pundit for British TV, wrote.
"Sure, he has blistering natural speed, but I suspect Ferrari will improve dramatically if and when Fernando Alonso arrives," the Scot added.
It is an open secret in the F1 paddock that Alonso, who currently drives for Renault, has signed some sort of document that could see him move to Ferrari in 2011 or even sooner.
38-year-old Coulthard is not only worried about Ferrari's driver line-up, but also the managerial setup in the period following the departure of imperious boss Jean Todt.
"Team Principal Stefano Domenicali is a young, approachable and thoroughly nice man. In Formula One, those ingredients do not always work," said the veteran of nearly 250 races.
"His McLaren counterpart, Martin Whitmarsh, may well be suffering from a similar problem. Are these two young, able team leaders tough enough?" Coulthard wonders.
"Kimi Raikkonen would never have been wandering about the pits with a choc-ice and a coke, as he was in Malaysia when the race was still technically in session, had Todt still been in charge," he observed.
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