Different colour race suit, same dominance: Renault's world champion Fernando Alonso is giving Ferrari a taste of their own Formula One medicine.
Two years ago Michael Schumacher was in his pomp, winning 12 of the first 13 races on his way to the most crushing of his seven world championships.
Even if Alonso races in blue rather than red, Sunday's British Grand Prix confirmed this season is turning into a re-run of 2004 with the Spaniard in the dominant role.
When the 24-year-old became the sport's youngest champion last year it was a breath of fresh air, a super-quick youngster apparently opening a new and thrilling era.
Now, with Alonso winning five of the eight races and finishing second in the others, there is more a sense of foreboding.
"He has scored 74 points out of 80 so it's remarkable," said Ferrari boss Jean Todt after Sunday's race.
"He's quick, competitive and reliable so it makes things more difficult for the others."
If the crowd stifled an occasional yawn in the summer sunshine as they waited in vain for an overtaking manouevre, Alonso's compatriots were happy enough with the outcome and he intends to continue delighting them.
"Obviously there is nothing more to find in the car, we're running on the limit of the car," said the Spaniard.
"We need to keep doing things like this. I think the best defence from now on will be attacking and keep winning races is what we have to do."
NOT RESIGNING
Alonso leads Schumacher by 23 points and the 37-year-old German is still the only man to have beaten him this season.
"There are 10 races to go, plenty of opportunities," said Schumacher, who finished second at Silverstone.
"We believe in ourselves and we will do a lot of hard work to get going and to take as many points as we can to be up front at the end of the year.
"There's no way we are resigning at all."
Schumacher holds the record of 19 successive podium finishes, set in 2001-2002. Alonso now has 14 in a row and could easily set a record this season.
"We will try to finish on the podium in all of the races," said the champion. "I don't know about the record but it's not very important...I hope to finish a lot more times on the podium this year."
So too does McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen after his third appearance on the rostrum in 2006.
The Finn, winner seven times last year, has yet to climb back to the top step and his third place at Silverstone was about as much as he could have hoped for.
"We are still too slow to try to fight for wins in the races," Raikkonen added.
"I think Monaco was a special place where we could challenge for a win but here it's back to reality."
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