Alonso currently lies in fifth place in the world championship points standings after the first four races with 41 points and he claimed his first podium of the season with a fighting third place finish last time out in Turkey.

“It is a great pleasure to have renewed our agreement with a driver who has always demonstrated a winning mentality even in the most difficult circumstances, commented President Luca di Montezemolo in a statement today. “Fernando has all the required qualities, both technically and personally to play a leading role in the history of Ferrari and I hope he will be enriching it with further wins very soon.”

Alonso switched from Renault to Ferrari last year to replace 2008 F1 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen who was bought out of the last year in his contract by the Italian team. The Spaniard eventually came second in the championship to Sebastien Vettel (Red Bull-Renault), only losing out in the very final race in Abu Dhabi thanks to poor team strategy which left him unable to pass the Renault of Vitaly Petrov, but he however took five wins and two pole positions along the way.

“I am very happy to have reached this agreement, said Alonso today. “I immediately felt comfortable within Ferrari and now it feels to me like a second family. I have the utmost faith in the men and women who work in Maranello and in those who lead them: it is therefore natural for me to decide to extend my relationship in the long term like this, with a team at which I will no doubt end my Formula 1 career one day.”

Alonso started his F1 career at the tiny Italian Minardi team in 2001 before switching to Renault for five consecutive seasons (the first as a test driver) which culminated in two F1 world titles (2005 and 2006). For the 2007 season he surprisingly moved to McLaren but a difficult year which included a very public falling out with his rookie team mate Lewis Hamilton netted only third place in the championship and he was quickly back at a now-uncompetitive Renault team for the next two years.