The prancing horse is lame

Ferrari.

What does that name mean to you? If you're an F1 fan who was bought up on the sport in the 80s and 90s - like me - it means "laughable underperformance backed by biggest budget in the sport".

From 1980 through to 1999, Ferrari failed to win anything in F1. It might be hard to remember those times thanks to the work of Schumacher and Brawn (and we'll come back to them in a moment), but they were hopeless in varying degrees.

Sometimes, such as with Alain Prost in 1990, they came mighty close to winning something. Sometimes, such as in 1980 - the year after Jody Scheckter won the world championship for them - they suffered the indignity of undertaking the least-successful ever attempt at defending an F1 title. And other years, such as with Alesi and Berger in 1993, they were just utterly dire.

1980 remains Ferrari's worst ever start to an F1 season, but only as far as points scored are concerned. Because there was a different points system in place then compared to the one in place today, if we look at race results Ferrari's worst ever start to an F1 season took place in 2009. Yep, this year. In 1980, they'd managed a fourth place finish by the fourth race. This year, they only managed a fifth in the same period.

How can this be? Up until the last corner on the last lap of the last race of 2008, they were the champions. In 2007, they were the champions. As they had been every year from 2000 to 2004 inclusive. Where did it all go wrong?

In the past, driver management has been an issue. By failing to deal with Villeneuve and Pironi in 1982, one driver killed himself whilst trying to prove a point in qualifying for the Belgian GP, and the other suffered an almost idential career-ending (but not fatal) accident whilst qualifying in Germany.

Mansell and Prost didn't get on in 1990. By the end of the year, the whining moustache had done enough to unsettle the team at the point when they needed to focus on Prost's title challenge.

In 1997, Schumacher attempted to cheat his way to the drivers' title by ramming Villeneuve, in the same way that he cheated his way to the title in 1994 by ramming Hill. He didn't get the chance to challenge for the title in 1996 because the team suffered three consecutive Grands Prix in the middle of the season where neither of their cars finished. Schumacher was leading races on two of those occasions.

In the early 90s, Ferrari were able to entice designer John Barnard from Benetton, and this looked like a masterstroke. Barnard was responsible for the "flying nose" on the 1992 Benetton which since 1996 has pretty much been the standard front wing configuration used by every team. Although the idea was pioneered by Dr Harvey Postlethwaite at Tyrrell, Barnard had the vision and the funds to perfect it.

Ferrari got their man, but he wouldn't move to Italy! Instead, he worked from his design studio in the UK, with bits of Ferrari moving backwards and forwards between Italy and the home counties throughout the seasons as the cars were designed and improved. His 1994 Ferrari was beautiful to look at and moderately quick. His 1995 car was less attractive but much faster. In 1996 he dropped the flying wing and produced and ugly, dumpy car. Logic dictated that this should be even quicker. It wasn't, and only the brilliance (and luck) of Schumacher got it to perform.

But then Ferrari got Ross Brawn. He did move to Italy. The rest is history.

And then the FIA decide to rewrite the rule book for 2009, which means that all of this year's cars are clean-sheet designs. Everything that went before is thrown out of the window. Suddenly, Ferrari and BMW look like they don't know what they're doing.

Instead, Red Bull and Brawn are the cars to beat. Well, consider the engineering talents of Ross Brawn and Adrian Newey, and it's easy to see why. Between them, they have been responsible for the design of 11 of the last 17 title-winning cars!

Foot-shooting is common at Ferrari, and continues to this day. Had they not opted to use a needlessly-complicated pit exit traffic light thing instead of a bloke holding a stick to signal when Massa could exit the pits last season - a system which inevitably went wrong - then Massa would be champion. This year, they've managed to mess up qualifying on two occasions out of five. That's good going for a team that spends upwards of $300 million a year!!

They don't even appear to have the FIA on their side any more. In the early 2000s, when the teams were threatening to break away from the FIA and start their own series, the FIA made sure that they got Ferrari to agree to stay with them. Without Ferrari, they said, there was no F1.

Last week, when Ferrari threatened to withdraw from the series if the FIA go ahead with their budget-capping plan for 2010, the FIA said that Ferrari could like it or lump it. F1 will continue without Ferrari, they said.

Why the sudden change of heart?

Could it be because Ferrari were the main threat to McLaren, a team owned by Ron Dennis - a man despised by Max Moseley? Probably. Today, of course, neither Ferrari nor McLaren look like winning anything this year, and Dennis is no longer part of McLaren anyway. As far as Moseley is concerned, Ferrari have served their purpose.

And that leaves them up the creek without any means of locomotion. Because, without the FIA to randomly change regulations so that they maintain the upper hand, Ferrari appear to be at a loss as to what to do to improve their car. They look hopeless, a prancing horse fallen lame.

Which is why it's shaping up to be one of the best Formula One seasons in a very, very long time.