DERBY DAYS/FERRARI v McLAREN:THERE ARE several common ingredients in every enduring sporting rivalry - such as sustained success by both sides and great records.

But, most important of all, there's always one spark that elevates the competition between the two sides to a fully independent flame of its own - one incident that is embedded in the hearts and minds of both sets of participants and supporters.

Remarkably, that spark in Formula One motor racing originated within the McLaren team itself.

By the start of the 1988 season, the Frenchman Alain Prost was firmly established as the pre-eminent driver in Formula One - claiming two of the previous three drivers' championship - and felt secure enough at McLaren to persuade team manager Ron Dennis to go after the services of the other hottest ticket on the track, the Brazilian Ayrton Senna.

The following two seasons were marked by McLaren's domination on the track and an increasingly bitter relationship between Prost and Senna, culminating in a controversial crash between the pair at the Japanese Grand Prix in 1989. Prost had enough and left for Ferrari to link up with Nigel Mansell as Gerhard Berger moved in the other direction to partner Senna.

Suddenly, new life was breathed into the McLaren v Ferrari rivalry. After 14 of the 16 rounds in the 1990 season, Senna had six wins, Prost five.

October 21st. Senna is on pole in Japan but unhappy he doesn't have the racing line. Nine points ahead of his Ferrari rival, he promises that if Prost gets to the first corner ahead of him he will act as if there is no car there. Prost must finish within the points to stay in the race for the drivers' title. The McLaren and Ferrari cars collide at the first bend.

The rivalry between Ferrari and McLaren - one that had simmered since the 1970s - was suddenly out of the paddocks and into the livingrooms of motor-racing fans.

Back in 1974, the Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi was at the wheel for McLaren. The hot favourites for the drivers and constructors championships eventually prevailed, but the result was far closer than expected.

The season provided the opening shots for many further duels between McLaren and Ferrari.

Starting the final race, the US Grand Prix, Fittipaldi was level on points with Ferrari's Clay Regazzoni, but handling problems ended the Swiss driver's challenge.

The following season Ferrari arrived with the 312T and gave Niki Lauda what he described as "the unbelievable year", Ferrari leaving McLaren in their dust through the European rounds.

In the 1976 season Ferrari came out of the blocks first, but the McLaren fightback began in earnest in France and England, James Hunt winning at Paul Ricard, but being denied at Brands Hatch after an appeal by Ferrari, who claimed he should not have been allowed drive a spare car after a first-lap pile-up (this despite the fact Ferrari had also put Regazzoni in a spare car).

Despite the setback, Hunt won in the Netherlands, Canada and the US to take the drivers' championship by a point from Lauda, who had crashed so badly at Nürburgring he was given the last rites.

For all the rivalry between the two teams in the following decades, at least it was, for the most part, confined to matters on the track.

But the most recent Formula One season brought all the bitterness bubbling to the surface again and most of the action was on the sidelines.

Last July, Scuderia Ferrari fired mechanic Nigel Stepney. McLaren suspended their chief designer, Mike Coughlan, and admitted an employee had obtained technical information from a member of the Ferrari team.

The claims and counter-claims were swift and hard-hitting, but the World Motor Sport Council decided not to penalise McLaren. Ferrari were predictably furious.

The FIA reopened the case, however, after incriminating messages between McLaren driver Fernando Alonso, test driver Pedro de la Rosa and Coughlan came to light.

Emails between Alonso and De la Rossa included, "All the information from Ferrari is very reliable . . . It comes from Nigel Stepney, their former chief mechanic - I don't know what post he holds now. He's the same person who told us in Australia that Kimi (Räikkönen) was stopping in lap 18. He's very friendly with Mike Coughlan, our chief designer, and he told him that."

McLaren were caught red-handed and the FIA fined them an incredible $100 million and stripped them of their constructors' points.

If they had not been stripped of the constructors' points, Ferrari would have topped the table by a point.

Ferrari's Räikkönen claimed the drivers' title; the McLaren drivers, Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, were just a point behind.

The 59th FIA Formula One World Championship season begins this weekend in Melbourne; Ferrari's Räikkönen and Felipe Massa are slight favourites to claim the honours ahead of McLaren's Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen.

The rivalry appears to be entering a new phase - one, hopefully, that will be confined once more to what happens on the track.