I fear for Ferrari’s immediate future with the imminent and, what I am sure, will be the tetchiest of tie-ups between drivers Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen.

And I must admit I sniggered at company President Luca di Montezemolo’s assertion, as naive as can be, that all will be fine and dandy in the zone of the grand prix legends, with two of the fieriest characters in Formula One set to do battle.

Either Montezemolo has had a memory lapse, conveniently overlooking the past dubious records of the two parties to his team’s new partnership, or he has suffered an astounding attack of misplaced confidence that goodwill will be the norm around the Prancing Horse outfit’s drivers.

Either way Montezemolo, I feel, like the F1 world in general, will be enlivened by the cross-garage enmity of two highly-motivated and talented, but self-obsessed, drivers that could well spill over onto the race tracks in memorable and not necessarily pleasant style.

And the victims could be Ferrari themselves.

Montezemolo concedes that the partnership does indeed bear some risk — but he is confident his schoolmasterly warnings to the twosome will calm any potentially explosive confrontations.

Raikkonen, who won the 2007 world title for the Italian legends before being kicked out two years later when he fell out of favour, will be hell-bent on a desperate championship chase. He has been first across the line 20 times.

Alonso, a winner 33 times, the double-champion before he signed for Ferrari, has been frustrated that the team has failed to give him a car to match his skill and ambition to clinch a third title.

So both men, supremely single-minded, hard-driven and ruthless, have something to prove without either — as teams prefer — wanting to help each other in their employers’ cause and pursuit of glory.

Here’s what Montezemolo has to say: “Putting together Alonso and Raikkonen could be dangerous. But in F1 everything is a potential danger.

“I think that Fernando knows he drives not for himself but for Ferrari. And Raikkonen knows that he is in the second half of his career, two very important years for him, with experience and responsibilities. I am confident they will both do what is good for Ferrari.”

Oh yeah!!!

Just in case, though, team manager Stefano Domenicali has wagged a warning finger and Montezemolo said: “He has spoken very clearly to both of them.

“They have the honour and responsibility of driving for Ferrari and every driver knows that he has to drive for the team and not himself.

“If a driver does want to drive for himself, there are many possibilities. They can do their best for their own team, Ferrari, or they can go to a different team. In Ferrari these are the rules.”

Only time will tell how much heed Alonso and Raikkonen will take to Montezemolo when they are all fired up for a grand prix win and either one is in the way of the other.

— The writer is a motorsport expert based in the UK