Ferrari will remain competitive in Germany

The 2012 Formula One World Championship has been an unpredictable season.

Teams go from dominating a race weekend like Nico Rosberg and Mercedes did in China, or Pastor Maldonado and the Williams team in Spain to then failing to perform the following week at a race track with differing characteristics.

The unpredictability of the Pirelli tyres has also had an affect, with teams having to chase the ever closing and changing tyre window that gives the teams optimum performance during the compounds 'sweet spot'.

That has brought unpredictable racing almost every time the lights go out on the start of a race, but consistency has proven to be key and the most consistent set-up in Formula One thus far this season has proven to be the combination of Ferrari and double world champion Fernando Alonso.

Alonso has finished in the top five in the past five races and leads the drivers world championship and his team believe that he will continue to be competitive at the German Grand Prix this weekend.

'The car was good in Valencia, it was also good in Silverstone. And as Hockenheim is a mix of the slow speed of Valencia and high speed of Silverstone, I would expect Ferrari to be competitive in Germany.' Alonso's race engineer Andrea Stella told the Ferrari official website as quoted by Autosport Magazine.

With the first half of the season almost completed Fernando Alonso currently leads the Formula One World Championship by 13 points to Red Bull's Mark Webber.

Four months ago you wouldn't have found many people in F1 predicting that outcome, with the 2012 Ferrari looking poor during winter testing.

But the team have played catch-up throughout the season, whilst Alonso has driven the car to perfection at times and that has given Ferrari a great basis to build their title challenge.

'At the start of the season it would have required one to be extremely optimistic to imagine such a situation, But in this sport, things can change very quickly and we have always maintained a positive attitude. The current situation is the result of this attitude combined with a lot of hard work.'

The one area that Ferrari are concentrating on to find improvement to their car is its top-speed, this is often highlighted during qualifying, where on a one lap basis, the cost of not having the straightline speed in comparison to other cars has cost them.

'You always want to get more and more top speed as it brings benefits in terms of reducing the lap time and it makes life easier during the race,'

'But of course, top speed is the counterpart to downforce and in a way, if we are limited when it comes to top speed, that is partly because our car is performing well when it comes to downforce. However, it is definitely an area where we are trying to improve for the future.'