Ferrari on track for the title :- Is 2012 the beginning of a new era?

Last season Ferrari didn't exactly get off to the best of starts after struggling with the new Pirelli tyres. Trailing behind fellow contenders Red Bull and Mclaren , they were playing catchup for the first half of the season and struggling to finish on the podium. However whilst one driver improved , the other simply could not produce the standard needed to win a title.
   Fernando Alonso steadily improved throughout the season showing that Ferrari can still win claiming victory at Silverstone and producing some of the most spectacular drives of his career carving his way through the field on several occasions. It is easy to see that since his last title in 2006 , The spaniards form has not dropped and he is still a worthy contender given the right car. Think back to 2009 when Renault had a horrible car to start with and he still drove to a pole position in Hungary.
     His fellow racer Felipe Massa however has done the opposite. Since a down to the wire title battle with Hamilton in 2008 Massa has never been able to create that form that he once had. Then after missing half of the 2009 season due to being hit in the head with a part of Rubens Barrichello's Brawn GP , he again hasn't delivered the form needed to take Ferrari to the top. He has shown sparks of talent like in Bahrain 2010 and beating Fernando to a podium in Australia. But in 2011 it was a different story. He was constantly outclassed by Alonso , scoring less than 50% of the spaniards total points and failed to score a single podium,
      But there could be hope. In a recent interview Massa told Autosport "I want to be as competitive as possible, to win as man races as possible and fight for the championship as I have done many times in the past."
   With this motivation if Massa can carry this throughout the season and support Alonso to score maximum points for the team then perhaps it could be the year of the prancing horse. As long as Alonso holds his form and pushes the car way over the limit as per usual and Massa can finish as high as possible then we could see a title fight. 
   A good example of a supporting role is Mark Webber for Red Bull. While Vettel is winning as much as he can , Mark constantly tucks in behind to secure a high finishing position maybe even challenge for the win and the tilte. Of course there will always be competitiveness (think back to Turkey 2010) but overall the gameplan works.

   But with the future of Felipe uncertain , he has to perform this season above and beyond standards to secure his drive for 2013. We will see what happens as the season unfolds nothing is certain and it's impossible to predict results. But if Ferrari get it right , we could see the duo at the front of the grid very soon.