Ferrari made a mistake in not keeping Fernando Alonso, according to the team's former designer Nikolas Tombazis.

The two-time world champion left the Scuderia during the winter to re-join McLaren, while Tombazis and former technical chief Pat Fry were among the casualties in the engineering ranks.

However, Tombazis is adamant that he played a substantial role in the development of this year's car, which has sparked a return to winning ways in 2015, and suggested that Ferrari would have benefitted from retaining Alonso for the current campaign.

He told Corriere della Sera: "I was working until early December 2014, when it was already in production. I just wonder what they would have said if it had been a bad car rather than a good one.

"In my romantic vision, Ferrari would have done well to keep him. And me."

Ferrari have won two races this season, including last month's Hungarian Grand Prix.