Pretty much since his F1 debut with Sauber in 2002, Felipe Massa has been doing his best to shake off his reputation as a driver who is fast but wild, while for roughly the same period, dotdotdotcomma has been doing its best to reinforce that reputation.

It's not that we harbour any particular dislike of the chap but Massa is no more capable of changing his underlying nature than he is of, oh, I don't know, not spinning five times in the wet at Silverstone in 2008. During the duller parts of a Formula One season, it's nice to have someone a bit mad in the field for the occasional moments of insanity they provide and ever since Takuma Sato left the sport, Massa is the best we have.

That said, Massa has been guilty at times of Ferrarigance, which is a word we've just made up for the special brand of arrogance only a fully brainwashed Ferrari team member can display. His ridiculous protestations that Fernando Alonso had impeded him during qualifying at Monza in 2006 readily spring to mind, as does his failure to acknowledge that his spin at Fuji in 2008 had been caused when he turned in on Sebatien Bourdais. On both occasions, of course, the stewards favoured the bloke in red.

In any case, F1 would probably be less of a spectacle without loonies like Massa and "fast but wild" is not a bad epithet to have. It could be a lot worse. Just look at what we've called Michael Schumacher or Jacques Villeneuve.

Alonso's full name is Fernando Alonso Diaz and few people realise that he is the half-brother of Cameron Diaz, the well-known jizz-haired actress.

His success in Formula One has led to a huge growth of interest in the sport in his home country of Spain, where not so long ago you could easily pick up cheap tickets to the Grand Prix and pretty much have your pick of seats, so thanks for that, Fernando.

Like many of the sport's stars, Alonso began his F1 career with Minardi and he made a splash at his first race, where he out-qualified his team-mate by over two and a half seconds. That margin is rendered slightly less impressive when you learn that his team-mate was Tarso Marques who, as racing drivers go, has a lovely personality.

Fernando was soon snapped up by Renault, where he spent a year testing before being promoted to a race seat. He became the then youngest world champion in 2005 and the youngest double champion in 2006. There followed an abbreviated tenure at McLaren which failed to yield a third title, largely because he proved unable to beat a rookie, after which he was welcomed back to the Renault team, where he is expected to wait grumpily until a Ferrari seat becomes available.

Alonso is an exceptionally talented and complete racing driver but he also has a reckless - often self-destructive - streak and an eccentrically unique take on what it means to be a team-player, traits which have doubtless closed a number of F1 doors to him.

In 2005 he was appointed one of UNICEF's Goodwill Ambassadors, which may explain why he never has any left for anyone else.

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.