"There is nothing more certain that Ferrari will be beaten," McLaren director Ron Dennis said. "That is absolutely certain. It is only a question of when."

Dennis was speaking not so much of just a one-off win against Ferrari, but rather of the time when the dominant team will no longer be so crushingly superior. McLaren may pull off a win in this weekend's Italian Grand Prix. Williams could do the same. But it is going to take a little bit of luck -- along with a tire advantage -- to win in the near future and a lot of hard work to beat Ferrari in the long run.

Ironically, back in 1988 the roles were reversed. It's hard to believe, but the 1988 McLaren Honda MP4/4 was even more dominant than the Ferrari F2002 has been this year. So dominant, in fact, that McLaren nearly won every single race and ended up winning 15 of 16 events that season. And, but for a twist of fate, McLaren would have won all 16 races that year.

With Nigel Mansell still ill with the aftereffects of chicken pox, Williams needed a substitute for the Italian Grand Prix and brought in Jean-Louis Schlesser, who was an accomplished driver but an F1 rookie. Ayrton Senna led the race from the start in his McLaren Honda while teammate Alain Prost would retire with an engine failure.

On lap 49 of the 51-lap race, Senna came up to lap Schlesser, and normally Senna was a master at slicing past traffic. Senna was having to hustle as he had slowed to conserve fuel and that had allowed the second-place Ferrari of Gerhard Berger to close in. As Senna tried to pass Schlesser in the first chicane, however, the two tangled and were knocked out of the race.

Much to the delight of all the Italian Ferrari fans, Berger led teammate Michele Alboreto to an one-two sweep. It was Ferrari's only victory of the season and McLaren's only defeat.

Here and now
Flash forward to the present and the tables are completely turned. Ferrari?s Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello have won 12 of 14 races in 2002 while McLaren and Williams have a single win each.

McLaren, however, will be heading to Monza with the same goal it has had at every race this season: to win.

"You come to every race and on Thursday you sit there thinking that you can win the race," Dennis said. "It is how you attack qualifying. If you start with the mentality that you can't succeed, there is no question that you are not going to succeed."

But there is more than just a mindset, according to Dennis, because McLaren has been improving its package.

	Michael Schumacher has 10 wins in his Ferrari this season.

"You blend that (mindset) with how you have improved the car, and the performance of the engine and the performance of the tires," he said. "We have been systematically improving all of them."

About this time of the season some teams stop all development on their current cars to devote their resources to creating next year's car. McLaren and Mercedes, however, are continuing an intense dual development program on both this year's and next year's car.

"There is a significant amount of resource focused on next year but not to the detriment of trying to win some of the remaining races," Dennis said.

As for the Mercedes Benz V10, Mercedes racing boss Norbert Haug says it's a little bit of a different approach.

"It is not like you develop a new engine and throw the old one away," Haug said, "so the development steps we are making with this engine are very helpful for next year's engine. At (the Belgian Grand Prix) in terms of top speeds we had a step forward on the engine, and we are going to improve further. Whatever we learn now is the baseline for next year's engine."

A tired issue
The combination of all these constant development steps has improved both the McLaren chassis and the Mercedes engine. But if there is going to be a quick fix this weekend, it will have to come with the Michelin tires used by McLaren and Williams proving to be better than the Bridgestones run by Ferrari. It has happened before this season.

"If you look at the grid in Belgium and the grid in Monte Carlo and the grid in France, the pattern you will see is a significant percentage of Michelin runners in the top-10," Dennis said. "We have obviously improved the overall performance of the car: there have been constant aerodynamic improvements and step-by-step improvements on the engine. And when we come to a circuit where we are able to use the tire, then we get the performance."

David Coulthard won Monaco from the pole in his Michelin-shod McLaren while teammate Kimi Raikkonen came close to winning in France. Raikkonen qualified on the front row in Belgium, but when it came to the race the Bridgestone-shod Ferraris were untouchable.

"The moment you are out of the performance window of the tire, then you are history," Dennis said.

A good example was at the recent Hungarian Grand Prix where McLaren's Coulthard and Raikkonen could only qualify 10th and 11th, respectively. The Michelin tire was much better in race conditions and Raikkonen climbed to fourth and Coulthard to fifth.

"It just shows you the very significant role the tire plays in the performance of the car," Dennis said.

When will Ferrari be beaten? History shows that no team can keep up its domination forever. As for this weekend's Italian Grand Prix, the same race back in 1988 proves anything can happen.

Dan Knutson covers Formula One for National Speed Sport News.