Kimi Raikkonen has plenty of supporters among the passionate Ferrari 'tifosi' as the team's first champion of the post-Schumacher era, and last to date, and his return would a break with Ferrari tradition as much as a blast from the past.
A decade on from their last driver's title, courtesy of Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, Ferrari emerged from eight days of testing in Spain with the fastest lap times coupled with impressive reliability.
Red Bull's triple world champion Max Verstappen followed up a Saturday sprint win with a statement pole position for Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix, with McLaren's Lando Norris again alongside on the front row.
Lewis Hamilton has raised his game but whether the Mercedes driver can deny Ferrari a second successive win of the season in China this weekend remains to be seen.
Kimi Raikkonen went further, saying he had no intention of leaving McLaren.
Mexican team mate Sergio Perez qualified second fastest in a front row lockout for Red Bull, 15 years after the team took their first win at the Shanghai International Circuit with Sebastian Vettel.
World champion Max Verstappen took the first pole position of the Formula One season in Bahrain on Friday.
In a race of safety cars and surprises, Verstappen's former team mate Pierre Gasly made a first podium appearance in second place for Red Bull-owned Toro Rosso, a rare Honda-powered one-two.
A French court has thrown out a bid by Ferrari to prevent Formula One's governing body from introducing controversial new rules next season.
The Toyota driver has accused Ferrari of putting their own interests ahead of the future of Formula One.
Images from the Russian F1 Grand Prix in Sochi on Sunday
Ferrari, winners of 15 of last year's 18 races, have now gone three Grands Prix without a win
Ferrari have extended Brazilian Felipe Massa's contract by two more years to the end of the 2010 season.
Formula One will have a record 24 races in the season that starts in Bahrain on Saturday.
The 166 Spyder Corsa was built by manufacturer Enzo Ferrari just after the World War II.
Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene has said the 'door at Maranello will always be open' for Michael Schumacher's son Mick should the German prospect follow in his father's footsteps and progress to Formula One.
Formula One world champion Kimi Raikkonen and Brazilian Felipe Massa will stay at Ferrari for the next two seasons, the Italian team said in a statement on Friday. The announcement dealt a blow to the hopes of Spaniard Fernando Alonso and Poland's Robert Kubica, both of whom have been linked to the team in media speculation as likely replacements for Raikkonen in 2010.
Francesco Molinari was only half joking when he said his stunning British Open victory might make the headlines back home - as long Ferrari had not won the Grand Prix in Hockenheim.
The 23-year-old Finn has 48 points compared to the 44 of Ferrari's second-placed Michael Schumacher.
Force India's Sergio Perez refused to rule out a move to Ferrari on Thursday, even though he denied any contact with the Italian Formula One team and said the rumours about his future reflected his form.
The former F1 world champion lauded the pit-crew for putting out the fire that engulfed Schumacher's car during Sunday's Austrian GP.
Jose Froilan Gonzalez, the 'Pampas Bull' who in 1951 became the first driver to win a Formula One world championship Grand Prix for Ferrari, has died in Buenos Aires at the age of 90, Argentine media reported on Saturday.
Ferrari, expecting rain, sent Vettel and team mate Kimi Raikkonen out on the intermediate tyres at the start of the final shootout phase of qualifying.
Kimi Raikkonen will race for Ferrari next season after agreeing a two-year deal that takes the 2007 Formula One World champion back to the glamour team he left in 2009.
The Finn's lap of one minute 17.221 seconds around Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya was the second fastest of the eight days of winter testing and slower only than team mate Sebastian Vettel's best on Thursday.
The Briton's fourth victory in five races suggests that once again the 33-year-old is hitting a purple phase just as the season enters its critical stages.
Sebastian Vettel has lived through a number of false dawns at Ferrari but bright sunshine bathed the team's garage after the German's Australian Grand Prix victory on Sunday.
The matter is already fixed for hearing on September 23.
The sport's oldest and most successful team are hoping the car, with more red and less white in the livery following the departure of sponsor Santander, will take them to a first championship in a decade.
Red Bull's triple World champion Max Verstappen claimed pole position on Saturday for the Miami Grand Prix, to start from the front of the grid for the sixth straight race this season.
Ferrari were already feeling the frustration and Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix added a measure of embarrassment to the mix for Formula One's most successful and glamorous team.
Brazilian Felipe Massa announced on Tuesday he is leaving Ferrari at the end of the season, opening the door for Kimi Raikkonen to return to the Formula One team that took him to the title in 2007.
In the interests of better visibility, teams were told last month they could fix mirrors to the halo head protection device that encircles the cockpit and that became mandatory this season.
Verstappen, who had started alongside Norris on the front row, was leading by lap three and could then build a buffer and take control.
'When my mom saw my performance in Dhoka, she loved it.' 'She said, "I don't know why I stopped you for so many years. Ab jaa beta, jee le apni zindagi".'
'The team is developing and closer together year by year so I hope that this year we get to have a lot of fun -- fun means win a lot of races and then ultimately you are fighting for the championship'
Vettel, 17 points behind Hamilton after a commanding win in Belgium last Sunday, has previously triumphed at Monza with Toro Rosso and Red Bull and will fancy his chances of the hat-trick at the super-fast track outside Milan.
Kimi Raikkonen believes he still has the speed that Ferrari need despite reports that the Formula One team are lining up a replacement for 2016 in fellow-Finn Valtteri Bottas.
"I did not take any designs away from Ferrari. Someone passed on the designs but it wasn't me," Stepney told Italy's La Repubblica.
With 'team orders' now legal in Formula One, Ferrari's Felipe Massa will have to raise his game right from the start of the season in Australia next week.
