Canadian Grand Prix Review

Nothing too special about qualifying. BAR were going extremely well, as they seem to do on low downforce tracks. I expected the Arrows to be slightly higher up on the grid, given their straight-line speed advantage, while it was good to see Johnny Herbert in the Jaguar crack the top half. The same could not be said for Eddie Irvine, recording his lowest ever grid spot in F1, narrowly eclipsing his 17th in France last year. The other paddock talking point, it seemed, was Jos Verstappen's new helmet design, in honour of a valiant Dutch national soccer team competing in Euro 2000.

After qualifying, Irvine went on to comment that Jaguar had ironed out their clutch problems, and they could begin taking advantage of starts just like the BAR boys did. Well, Eddie was half right. While he stalled on the grid, losing two laps (and his race would only get worse after that), not for the first time this year Jacques Villeneuve made a dynamite start to catapult himself up to 3rd. Shades of Imola this year, and Barcelona last year. Funny how Rubens Barrichello couldn't hide his suspicions in the post-race press conference.

It looked good, but of course it was a false battle. Villeneuve was never meant to be there (I'm not saying he didn't have the right), and Martin Brundle in ITV commentary summed it up when he said Villeneuve was being a "nuisance". Murray Walker, sounding about twice as hyped as he usually does, declared the battle "real motor racing". Was he kidding? Far out, it was more like a case of "real Mosley crappy regulations". It would have been much better to see Barrichello and Hakkinen make it a four-horse race up front (or three-horse, counting Ferrari team orders).

Thankfully, Barrichello managed to find a way past the BAR. It was a top-notch move, against one of the hardest, meanest racers in the business, from a guy who on the other hand is usually regarded as a bit of a soft touch. Nice to see Barrichello then crank out some brilliant laps just to prove the point. I think both BAR drivers must have been working their tyres very hard in the early stages, because not only did Villeneuve have to concede to Barrichello and Hakkinen, but Ricardo Zonta was also dropping back.

It took the rain to really inject life back into this race. And also to catapult Giancarlo Fisichella out of nowhere onto the podium. Montreal is traditionally his best race of the year, but he really wasn't on the pace this time, but making his fuel stop at the same time as changing onto wets was a masterstroke, while everyone else had to make extra stops. That he didn't particularly deserve to be quite so high was evidenced by his half-a-dozen off-road excursions after that. Though not quite as many as Irvine! I get a feeling Eddie was really embarrassed after the race - he called his experience like driving "a skateboard".

The same level of skill could not be said for a few others. Pedro Diniz resorted to the primeval blinkered style that epitomised his early years by running his namesake De la Rosa off the track. Coulthard got desperate with Wurz, and the Austrian came off second best. But the prize for the ultimate kamikaze was Villeneuve's shocker on Ralf Schumacher at the hairpin. Talk about brain fade! That's the sort of late-braking mayhem you normally see on Grand Prix 2. I don't think Ralf, bung leg and all, particularly wanted a thump like that.

What's up with Hakkinen these days? This was his quietest weekend since late 1997, reduced to also-ran status by Coulthard. Anyone who's read these reviews will know I'm not a great Hakkinen fan, but his lack of form in the last two races has been worrying. On the other hand, I'm so pleased to see Coulthard re-emerge as a front-line challenger, though the cards didn't fall his way in this race.

No team seems to want to fill the gap as 'best of the rest'. On paper, you'd say Jordan. On sheer consistency, you'd say Benetton. On the ability to score points (though they haven't done it in the last few races), you'd say Williams. On nuisance value, you'd say BAR. On sheer team dynamism, you might even be tempted to say Arrows. There is so little between these teams. One team has a good weekend for a particular reason, while another will have a shocker. It'll then be reversed for the next race. And a tweak in set-ups will then see cars like the Saubers, Prosts and Jaguars thrust right into the equation. It's all very hard to analyse.

Some quick comments, nonetheless. Jordan's reliability woes seem to be continuing, and speed-wise they're still well deficient. When Eddie Jordan says in public that he's looking for a works engine next year, it sounds like he's given 2000 up. Benetton seem to be moving forward as a collective unit, but in the dry, on a track where I expected them to shine, they were still off the pace. Conversely, the Williams car seems to be overly sensitive to changing track configurations, and the Grove boys need to find some consistency in this area.

BAR look like they will do well in the next few races where downforce isn't as great a requirement. I look forward to seeing how well they do at Hockenheim. As for Arrows, they continue to surprise, and are really putting the cat amongst the pigeons from time to time. If BAR look good for Hockenheim, with their balanced aerodynamic package how good will Arrows be!

As for the others, Sauber and Minardi continue to stand still, while Prost seems to be making agonisingly slow progress, but some progress nonetheless. Jaguar, though, appear to have absolutely no momentum whatsoever, lurching from one weekend to the next. There's an inherent problem there, and for the life of me I can't really see why there should be.

So, onto France, a character-less track that usually gives a clear indication of where teams rank. On history alone, Ferrari might have a slight advantage over McLaren, but I won't read much into that. For me, the most interesting thing at Magny Cours will not be whether anyone can catch Michael Schumacher, but to see if Coulthard can really establish himself as McLaren's main man.