Alonso can be champion

The Spaniard has settled in well at Ferrari and with new developments due on the car he can challenge for the title.

Fernando Alonso, centre, talks to his Ferrari mechanics at the Turkish Grand Prix last month. The Spaniard has settled well with the Italian team and is a genuine championship contender.

This is a huge weekend for Fernando Alonso, who is racing in front of his home fans in Valencia, Spain, at the European Grand Prix. With upgrades due for his Ferrari, we should find out a lot more about his championship credentials. Ferrari made a good comeback at the last race in Canada and Alonso could have won it. He was a little unlucky to be beaten by the McLaren-Mercedes drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

But even though he was beaten, you could see how pleased he was in the press conference afterwards as he was competitive again, and back in the hunt. This weekend is also important, as Ferrari have got a number of aerodynamic developments for his car that could give them an extra step in performance and help them be closer to the pace-setting Red Bull-Renaults and McLarens. Despite the fact his Ferrari was not the fastest car in the field prior to Canada and he has not won since the opening race of the season in Bahrain, Alonso is still only 15 points behind Hamilton, the championship leader.

Alonso is the kind of driver who will reap the ultimate benefit from any improvements to a car. He is very ragged in his driving style, always pushing to the maximum, and that ensures that he gets the most of whatever car he has beneath him. That is how he won his two world championships with Renault in 2005 and 2006 and earned the reputation as being one of the most complete drivers on the grid. It has been a surprise just how well he has settled at Ferrari and effectively got the team revolving around him.

Felipe Massa was well established and liked within the team, but he has almost been pushed to the side by Alonso, who has the engineers working to set up the car to his liking. The Spaniard tried to do the same at McLaren when he joined them in 2007. However, he found the team would not adapt their resources fully to him as Hamilton was in the other car. He got frustrated and then began speaking out against the team and his relationship with them collapsed, leading to him leaving at the end of the year.

He had to spend two years in a largely uncompetitive Renault before signing for Ferrari last winter. But he has learned from it, taking both the positives and negatives from his experience with McLaren into working at a higher pressure team in Ferrari, and he has made it work. He should certainly be in the mix to win the race, along with the McLarens and Red Bulls, and it would not be a surprise given an anticipated step up in performance from his team if he is on the top step of the podium.

This is the third time Formula One is going to Valencia. The previous two races were not great spectacles and I think the tight track layout has not helped in that regard. But what should make the race more interesting this weekend is the tyre situation. The soft tyre proved very marginal in Canada as the degradation was high. This led to a lot of drama in the race as the drivers struggled to keep them in working order, and it led to a more unpredictable race with more pit-stops. That can only make it more entertaining.

It looks like Bridgestone are going to continue supplying that tyre in the coming races, which should spice things up as they make their departure from the sport at the end of the year, with Pirelli taking over in 2011. The soft tyre reminds me of when I first got into Formula One. We had a Goodyear tyre on which you would start the race. After a few laps they would fall away badly and you would struggle desperately for grip and the lap times would go up.

It was a case of managing the tyre during that period, which was a skill you had to learn, as the grip would eventually return and it was those who could do that well back in those days of the early 1990s who did the best. In the era of refuelling, tyre management was rarely an issue as the drivers were running light and nearly always on fresh tyres. But now the drivers are having to learn how to look after their tyres, as they are racing with a car fat with fuel at the start and you cannot just throw the car around as you will destroy your tyres and have to make multiple pit-stops.

We are already seeing that some drivers are better than others at preserving tyres while others, like Hamilton, are visibly improving by the race and making their rubber last the distance. Ultimately tyres are the one consistent factor in the sport. You can have all the aerodynamic grip in the world, but if you are struggling for grip you are going to be uncompetitive. It will make it difficult for the drivers but they are the best in the world and will handle this challenge.

Johnny Herbert is a former Formula One driver who competed in 161 races, winning three times. @Email:[e-mail]