Guns n’ Roses once sang that ‘nothing lasts forever, in the cold November rain.’ But for Ferrari, it only took a bit of August drizzle to call time on their title hopes.

The Belgian grand prix had promised much, with Fernando Alonso in charge of the first two practice sessions and looking good for a push for Ferrari’s first pole position for a year and a half. But as has been the case a few too many times for a wannabe triple world champion, he blew his chances in qualifying – from here his chances were demolished at the bus stop by an out of control Rubens Barrichello.

In fairness to the Brazilian, the corner witnessed the most bizarre sight of the season, with the majority of the top 10 running incredibly wide after slipping off when hitting an unexpectedly wet apex. Alonso was alerted to the danger ahead and managed to make the corner, whilst Barrichello was unlucky to find a Ferrari blocking his path to the run-off area that half the field had already taken. Only an ambitious strategy could truly salvage Alonso’s afternoon from here, but immediately switching to intermediates failed, and he dropped even further down upon pitting to rectify the error. An impressive counterattack through the field followed, only to be discarded when Alonso dumped the car into the wall when the rain came back down. Whilst title rivals Button and Vettel collided, it was Hamilton and Webber who he needed to have pointless afternoons for any realistic chance of staying in the title hunt. Even a Red Bull driver would struggle to take the points necessary, and Ferrari were beaten by three teams in Belgium. Given by how Force India looked to have not just have a car fitted with an F-duct, but with nitrous oxide and rocket fuel, and it’s easy to see the underdogs fighting with the big boys at Monza, just as they did last year. The 42 point gap between Webber and Alonso is now simply too big to budge.

Generally this season a weak display from Alonso has seen nothing special from Felipe Massa, and whilst his performance appeared solid if unspectacular, there can be a lot of positives for the plucky Brazilian. His fastest lap managed to post over a second ahead of Alonso’s, with a mistake-free race to boot. Admittedly his fourth place was inherited mainly thanks to a swerving Sebastian, but he looked on the pace and held well with what were essentially faster cars, but not necessarily faster drivers. Most impressively, he managed to defeat Alonso by a gigantic 1.1 seconds in qualifying – the biggest gap between the two all season.

So where to go from here? Ferrari return to their home race at Monza, with the demanding Tifozi once again facing the prospect of not seeing their favourites dominating the race. Worse still, assuming the Mercedes powerplant shows the strength it did at Spa, then even the podium places will be out of touch.

A reformed version of the legendary Guns n’ Roses may’ve recently been annoying festivals by playing well past their allocated times, at least Ferrari had the decency to bow out early.

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