One team insider recently made the telling observation that it is not run along the same lines as British marques, such as Williams and McLaren. Both of them have cross-pollination of ideas across all levels of the workforce. Despite the presence of Di Montezemolo, the man who masterminded Niki Lauda's successes in the Seventies, and despite the common sense Todt has tried to bring in his three years with the team, Maranello remains the hotbed of polemics that it always was when Enzo Ferrari was alive The Old Man's ghost still stalks the corridors. Technical staff voiced bewilderment, their incredulity embracing flights of fancy that outside agencies might have been at work. Schumacher, his long face set in a hard line, summarised it best: "This is absurd," he said as he watched his World Championship prospects dying.

"We did a race distance testing at Imola recently, and again at Monza We ran reliably here on Friday and Saturday And then we do three laps today. In 1969 they actually withdrew part-way through the season to regroup, and that happened again in 1973, though each time they bounced back stronger and more competitive than ever. There were Constructors' Championships in 1982 and 1983, but Ferrari's last world champion was Jody Scheckter, 17 years ago.At Silverstone last week the mood was one of complete astonishment. In 1954 and 1955 their cars were hopeless, and again in 1960 and 1962. There are myriad modifications in the pipeline for Schumacher to test, but where there was once talk that 1997 would mark Ferrari's true push towards another championship, sceptics already expect that Luca di Montezemolo, the Ferrari president, will soon promise that next year will be a build- up to an "all-out assault" in 1998.Spells in the doldrums are nothing new to a team that was in F1 even before the inauguration of the official World Championship in 1950. Italian law demands that a culprit be identified in fatal accidents, and its media similarly demands a scapegoat when Ferrari underperforms. Todt is the man in the crosshairs.Ferrari's problems are widespread The F310 was late arriving, which set the programme back.

Its handling has been indifferent, and its carbon fibre transmission casing has leaked. There have been suspension breakages, and their solution to aerodynamic conundrums has not matched that of Williams. The situation had reached crisis point.Since Magny-Cours, the Italian media had been screaming obsessively for someone's head, and the witchhunt was in full flow. Not after 10 laps, but while the field circulated on its warm-up lap.Worse still, two weeks later at Silverstone a hydraulic oil leak in the gearbox jammed Schumacher's car in sixth gear and forced him to drive straight into his pit garage after three laps, while Irvine's car lasted little longer before it ran a differential bearing. On the other hand I am always scared that we blow up one engine after 10 laps."And then came the French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours.