No team polarises fans quite like Ferrari: some believe that they can do no wrong, despite a vast and growing body of evidence to the contrary; other, sounder minds put them in roughly the same category as Lucius Malfoy, Jabba the Hutt and Sandi Toksvig.

Until fairly recently, the team had a reputation for passionate disorganisation, which occasionally somehow produced a decent car, and there was no end of very good drivers queuing up to put their mark on a contract for the scuderia, only to be disappointed by the tractor they were given to race.

The Brawn/Todt/Schumacher/Byrne axis changed all that. Suddenly the cars were quick, driveable and bullet-proof, while behind the scenes this highly political team fostered its "special relationship" with the FIA, leading to all manner of dubious rule interpretations in favour of the red cars.

That the team inspires such extreme reactions is partly a product of its own success (many people love to hate the ultra-successful - just ask Man Utd, Bill Gates or Patrick Kielty) but also because of the strutting arrogance and faux innocence with which it has been achieved. The lesson, which seems to be repeatedly lost on Ferrari, is to win, lose and get caught breaking the rules with equal good grace.

Some of our readers doubtless question the extent of dotdotdotcomma's continued antipathy towards the scuderia but when repeatedly faced with the team's insufferable arrogance in victory, sanctimonious posturing at perceived wrongs and instinctive refusal to accept blame, it's the only sane response.

There. We got all the way through that without once calling them a bunch of cheating c*nts.

This article refers to David Croft (sports journalist). If you were looking for David Croft (comedy writer), you're doomed..., doomed, I tell ye.

David Croft is a sports journalist who made his name commentating on Formula 1 for BBC Radio 5. His relaxed mates-down-the-pub style earned him the commentary spot on ITV's coverage of GP2, and he is a current favourite for the BBC's impending F1 TV coverage.

Croft's relaxed mates-down-the-pub style (q.v.) was honed through several years of spending considerable time with his mates down the pub in his home town of Stevenage (twinned with Lewis, Outer Hebrides, and Hamilton, New Zealand), a fact freely attested to by one such mate, no less a figure than dotdotdotcomma's very own Mathias Uncertain.

Having built up a successful relationship with the local media while working in various positions in Stevenage's renowned Gordon Craig Theatre, darling, Croft first branched out into journalism as a sports reporter for the local Comet newspaper. His connections got him an introduction to James Allen, of all people, and the rest is the humanities subject of your choice.

Mathias Uncertain is resolved to keeping a number of, let us say, sensitive facts about Croft's past lives under wraps, including the less-than-savoury origin of his "Binny" pseudonym, pending certain, ahem, favours, that may, or may not, involve a lifetime's supply of San Miguel.