I cannot be sure, but I get the impression that, with only two of the season's 18 F1 world championship qualifying rounds already run, double world champion Fernando Alonso is concluding that getting himself chucked out of the McLare
n squad in favour of a return to Renault might not have been the brightest juggling act to have pulled.
While Lewis Hamilton emerged from Sunday's Malaysian grand prix still leading the world championship despite a botched pit stop which dropped him to fifth place, his former team-mate Alonso has virtually conceded that he has no prospect of getting on terms with his old adversary.
Alonso, who won the 2005 and ‘06 titles driving for Renault, had pinned his hopes on a return to the French Formula One squad after falling out with the McLaren management in the middle of last season and leaving after serving just a single year of his contract.
However it now appears that even scoring points will be a tall order for the Spanish driver who finished the physically gruelling race at Sepang in eighth place, over a minute behind Kimi Raikkonen's winning Ferrari and 25sec adrift of Hamilton's fifth place McLaren. "It was more or less as we expected," the Spaniard was quoted as saying by AS newspaper. 
When Alonso rejoined Renault there was much speculation that he asked for a one year contract in order to be available at the end of 2008 to explore the possibility of driving for Ferrari alongside Kimi Raikkonen in the event of Felipe Massa being dropped from the Maranello line-up.
However it is understood that Flavio Briatore, the flamboyant Renault team principal, was not interested in a one year deal and eventually secured a two-year contract but with break clauses in Alonso's favour if certain performance criteria are not achieved.
Alonso has brushed aside speculation linking him again to the Ferrari team, saying it was to be expected following Massa's difficult start to the season. In any event, making room for Alonso at Ferrari would involve complex negotiations to buy out Massa's current deal which extends until 2010.
It seems to me that Alonso has screwed this up in a right royal fashion. What's the one thing more difficult than trying to take on Lewis in equal McLarens? You've got it: trying to take on Kimi in equal Ferraris!