Nelson Piquet and Alain Prost were the team leaders at Brabham and Renault respectively, with their team-mates Riccardo Patrese and Eddie Cheever pretty much nowhere all year. In the end, Piquet won the title 59 points to 57. But Arnoux ended up on 49 points, and Tambay within striking distance on 40. Which makes you wonder what Arnoux in particular could have achieved if he had been outright number one in the team.

Of course, Ferrari's current tactics backfired last year, when Eddie Irvine missed out on the World Championship by just two points to Mika Hakkinen. One of these, at least, he could have made up by not having to defer to Schumacher in France. And, with tongue in cheek, had Ferrari known of Schumacher's fate at the start of the year and had Irvine as number one all year, Michael would have been forced to give his Monaco win to Eddie, and the Ulsterman would have been Ferrari's long awaited World Champion.

He took four 2nd places, two 3rds, and two wins in Canada and Germany, where he actually started 8th. He even managed to scab a 4th in Holland having started 16th. The Italian was throwing down the gauntlet to Prost and McLaren, and looking to become Italy's first World Champion since Ascari in 1953. But then, in the last 5 races of the season, he qualified 7th, 4th, 15th, 15th and 5th, and retired from all of them, handing the title on a plate to the Frenchman. Michele was never quite the same after that.

A similar sort of thing then happened to Schumacher in 1997. In a closely-fought season, after 12 races Schumacher was well on top of the points table, having only once qualified outside the top 4. He had recorded 4 wins and three 2nd places. But then, out of nowhere, the Ferrari F310B was completely off the pace in Italy and Austria for no discernible reason, and the German could only manage a pair of 6th places having qualified 9th in both (although his race at the A1-Ring was delayed by a contentious stop-go penalty).

The syndrome also befell Irvine in a major way last year. Without Schumacher's guidance on technical matters, Ferrari went through a trot in Belgium, Italy and the European GP when Irvine only qualified 6th, 8th and 9th, and finish 4th, 6th and 7th. By struggling at Monza, he could not take advantage of the fact that Mika Hakkinen had thrown his car off the road and was off crying in the bushes. A ridiculously amateurish pit stop at the Nurburgring also cost him the chance of valuable points, if not victory. Not to mention the barge-board fiasco, which almost gave Hakkinen the championship on a golden platter.

This year, the syndrome almost struck again. Just when the Ferrari seemed to be on par with the McLaren in terms of sheer speed if not in terms of race set-up, after Schumacher had built a mammoth lead, it all went haywire with a suspension failure in Monaco, an engine failure in France, and two first-corner shunts in Austria and Germany and left Ferrari's championship bid on the back foot. Thankfully, they managed to respond in fine style with emphatic Schumacher victories in Italy, America and Japan to seal the crown.

Next: Villains and Tragedies