The question on everyone’s lips was why Ferrari, who had a clear advantage over McLaren-Mercedes in the first four races of the season, could do no better than finish third, a full 69 seconds, behind the winner.

The platitudes offered by team personnel also could not provide satisfactory answers, but the truth is the signs were there right from the word go on Thursday.

In all the practice sessions before the Grand Prix neither Massa nor Kimi Raikkonen was close to the pace set by Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. This was also explained away with platitudes, but anyone who watched these four cars closely could see the Silver Arrows were in a class of their own. Alonso and Hamilton could attack the narrow streets of Monte Carlo with much more confidence than the two Ferrari drivers.

Raikkonen did not make things easier for the team when he hit the barriers at the swimming pool and destroyed his right front suspension during qualifying on Saturday.

This left him 16th on the grid and with no choice but to start the race on a one-stop strategy in an effort to secure a point or two. It worked in the end, but the team could not have enjoyed the sight of the Finn stuck behind the dead slow Honda of Jenson Button for lap after lap.

Making up eight places, with a heavy fuel load on this circuit, is not a bad effort, until one recalls that Michael Schumacher went from 22nd to fourth in the same race last year…

Massa lost huge amounts of time behind backmarkers, but the same case can be made for him: his F2007 could obviously not find that extra bit to dispatch of them.

Ferrari does not have a very good record in this race — its last victory belonged to Schumacher in 2001 — but this year was undoubtedly one of its worst in terms of competitiveness.

Why the big difference in competitiveness between the F2006 and F2007?

Perhaps it lies in the basic difference in their design philosophies.

When Ferrari launched its 2007 car before the start of the season, one aspect that generated a lot of interest was the fact that its wheelbase was longer than that of its predecessor. It fact, it became general knowledge that its wheelbase was longer than those of most of its competitors.

It doesn’t take special technical insight to understand a car with a longer wheelbase will be good through fast, sweeping corners, but struggle through tight, slow ones. Indeed, the F2007 was fast on the fast circuits used for the first four races of the season but guess what? It was nowhere in Monaco…

The next race is in Canada. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve consists mainly of long straights and tight corners. After that, at Indianapolis, the F2007 will face another circuit with but one fast sweep. Think of the Nürburgring and the Hungaroring…

Could it be that Maranello’s finest designers have underestimated the handling defects of their long-wheelbased baby?

Hopefully, for the sake of a continuously exciting championship, not.