Felipe Massa confounded expectations by shading Ferrari's superstar signing Kimi Raikkonen for most of the first half of the year.

But, as Mark Hughes explains, Raikkonen eventually lived up to his reputation and asserted himself as the stronger driver.Massa was generally faster in the first half of the season, Raikkonen in the second.

Early in the season Felipe had the advantage as the incumbent driver with the knowledge of the team and the tyres (the 2007 Bridgestones were based on those of 2004-05 with which Massa was familiar).

These tyres did not give the front-end response Raikkonen was used to after years on Michelins, nor was he familiar enough with the Ferrari systems to easily adapt the car around the tyres.

Despite this, Raikkonen was devastating at the first race – though with the proviso that Massa’s qualifying problem meant the Brazilian wasn’t in a position to provide perspective.

But the characteristics of Albert Park disguised Raikkonen’s set-up problem, ironically giving a preview of how good he would be once he’d adapted later in the year.

He made a breakthrough in testing for Spain, round four, but this was stymied by the new tougher floor flexibility test, meaning the set-up had to be reconfigured for race weekend.

Practice at Monaco two weeks later was the first time, with both running untroubled, that Raikkonen appeared to have a significant pace advantage, but he then blew it with his Q2 crash, ironically as a result of now having the front-end response he’d been missing.

In Canada and USA he qualified marginally faster, weight-corrected, but circumstances worked against him.

The breakthrough had been made but was a long time in translation: This finally came in France where he beat Massa fair and square.

Thereafter only in Turkey did Massa have the upper hand and Raikkonen’s drives at Spa, Japan and China were superb.

In the treacherous conditions of Fuji his performance completely eclipsed Massa’s.