Alonso was excellent in maximizing a consistent car at the start of the season. The Ferrari might not have been at the highest high, but it was consistent on it's tyres and had a man possessed behind the wheel. The Ferrari never went up or down weekend to weekend like the McLaren Lotus and RBR did. Oh and Mercedes, but thats just a joke team.

As soon as the other teams worked out the tyres, after the mid season break, co-inciding with Ferrari's wind tunnel change, Ferrari were left behind and don't have the car win races as the quicker cars have got quicker and more consistent.
At the same time that this happened, Fernando has begun to struggle to extract performance out of the car in qualifying and has begun to start further and further back, leading to incidents like the sillyness with Kimi in Japan. At the same time Red Bull finally fixed whatever issue they were having for most of the season, and the car is now as consistent as it can be quick, especially in qualifying where it was struggling this season. This happening at the same time has not helped Fernando who has really struggled in qualifying with some of the updates, culminating in being comfortably out qualified by Massa at the USA.
Seb's not been amazing this season, but neither has his team. They strung it together at the right time, and in many way maximized their points scoring when that car wasn't doing what they wanted it to. By contrast, Ferrari have gone backwards for whatever reason, but I think it's interesting to see how much better Massa is doing now relative to Fernando.
Ideally it wouldn't be Fernando in this position, it would be Lewis. Now there's a man who has driven well most of the season. Really McLaren should be looking at a title here, but instead are out of it and we are looking at two less than perfect driver/team combinations coming through and taking the glory. Probably RBR.
