Ferrari has struggled so far this season to take the world championship fight to Red Bull, and latterly McLaren, and its car has been blighted by inherent problems caused in part by wind tunnel development data that the team has been unable to satisfactorily resolve. Despite a stunning start from Fernando Alonso last Sunday in Barcelona and the Spaniard leading his home race for the first two tyre rounds, he wound up at the chequered flag in a distant fifth place and with the ignominy of being lapped by the leaders, partly due to the car's inability to work optimally with certain tyre compounds and also due to a lack of strategic ability from the pitwall, a long term problem for the Italian team that seems to have become much more pronounced this year where strategies evolve during the races depending on the Pirelli tyres. The team's problems appear in many areas: Alonso's team mate Felipe Massa seems to be adrift at the moment and the pitwork on Sunday wasn't up to the usual high standards. It all leaves Ferrari 110 points behind Red Bull in the constructors' championship hunt after five races and a very tough task on its hands if it is to fight back.

At the end of last season when poor pitwall judgment cost Alonso the title at the last gasp, then it was the team's Australian Track Operations Director Chris Dyer who took the blame, and this week Technical Director Aldo Costa becomes the team's latest scapegoat. A statement issued in Maranello today read: "Scuderia Ferrari announces that, as from today, Aldo Costa relinquishes his current position as Technical Director to take on new responsibilities within the company." The team added that: "At the same time, the technical activity has been restructured in three areas: Director for the Chassis side is Pat Fry, Production is in the hands of Corrado Lanzone, while Engine and Electronics continues with Luca Marmorini. All three report directly to the Team Principal, Stefano Domenicali."

Meanwhile, the day after tomorrow the cars will be on track for free practice at the most famous venue on the calendar, the Monaco street circuit. As was the case last year, all the teams face one of the biggest logistical challenges of the year, moving the F1 “circus” from Spain to Monte Carlo in the tightest time frame of the year. “The biggest difficulty stems from the fact that normally, we take three days to set up the motorhomes for example and now, we have to do the same work in practically one day,” explains Scuderia Ferrari’s Logistics Manager, Max Balocchi. “Also, it has to be done in a much more confined space, as the Monaco motorhome paddock is so tight and all the teams arrive from Barcelona at the same time and try and finish the job as quickly as possible, because free practice at this race starts on Thursday not Friday. We get the job done by doubling up the numbers of personnel and working round the clock. Even the trucks that go from Barcelona to Monaco are kitted out with bunks so that the crew can get some sleep on the road and then, once in Monaco they get back to work, erecting the motorhome structures. We aim to be out of the Catalunya paddock early on Monday morning for what is about a ten hour journey in a truck.”

Building up the team units in the harbour-side paddock is a very complex operation. “We have a team of about ten logistics people along with eight truck drivers and a further ten people to build up the motorhomes in Monaco, hoping to get it all done by Tuesday evening, into the early hours of Wednesday morning,” continue Balocchi. “We tackled this logistical challenge for the first time last year when the calendar also had these two races back to back and we learned a lot from that experience. We try and coordinate our work with the other teams, especially those that are near to us in the paddock, so that we don’t get in each other’s way. It should be more straightforward this time. Some of our people have been on site in Monaco since Saturday to do the groundwork and because space is extremely restricted, to ensure that material from other teams is not encroaching on our own allocated space. There is a time schedule for which teams move in to the paddock when, but it only takes a problem on the road for one truck for this to be further complicated.

As for the race cars themselves, they are partly prepared in Spain with the rest of the work being completed on arrival in the Principality. The 150° Italia cars will run in high downforce configuration, although the current regulations mean that the days of running a truly “Monaco-only” aero package are in the past. Wings will be set to give maximum downforce, while mechanically, the car set-up must also factor in the very bumpy nature of the track surface. Given that the track itself is open to normal road traffic when not in use for racing, the surface is very dirty and slippery at the start of practice, improving dramatically throughout the weekend. How the Pirelli tyres will react to these conditions is still something of an unknown quantity, especially as the Italian manufacturer is bringing out its Soft and Super soft tyres for the first time this year. Once again tyre use throughout the weekend will be a key factor, even if Monaco is less demanding on tyres than many other tracks. It may be the case that the recently adopted strategy of sacrificing some qualifying performance in order to preserve new tyres for the race will be less important than in the past couple of races and, given the difficulty of overtaking at this track, even with KERS, DRS and high tyre degradation, this weekend could see a good grid position become once again the most important factor, as was the case up to the end of last season. If the traditional image of Monaco is of a sun-drenched paradise by the sea, the truth is that the mountains above the bay give the Principality its very own micro-climate and current weather forecasts are predicting rain at times and maybe even a thunderstorm, over the four days of the race meeting: in these conditions, the vagaries of the roulette wheel in the famous Casino are probably easier to predict than the outcome of the race.

Scuderia Ferrari has won this race a total of nine times, to put the Prancing Horse second in the record list behind McLaren on fifteen. However in recent years, the top step of the podium has proved to be too hard a climb, with the last victory dating back to Michael Schumacher’s win in 2001. Of our current drivers, Fernando Alonso has won twice, both times from pole, in 2006 and 2007, while Felipe Massa started from pole in 2008. Last year, the Brazilian started fourth on the grid and finished in the same place, while the Spaniard never took part in qualifying, after a heavy crash in free practice and on the Sunday, he went from 24th and last on the grid to sixth at the flag.