Another beautiful day in Sao Paulo, but now the holiday is over, there's traffic again, the pollution is rising and the Grand Prix circus is leaving town. And we leave it with Michael Schumacher's record ever more staggering: 11 races in Brazil, 10 of them on the rostrum, and the eleventh in the points. Maybe I should listen to my own form guide.

I think even Michael was a little bit surprised at just how competitive he managed to be in the race. While he admits that he likes the circuit - its bumpy characteristics are a challenge to any driver just to stay on the road - he admitted that it wasn't Ferrari's best, that they didn't necessarily feel it's a circuit on which they do well, not one of 'their' circuits.

So to bring a new, unraced car, put it on the front row in conditions that favour their rivals' tyre supplier, take the lead early on and stay there under a lot of pressure has to be a great result. Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo certainly thought so.

But you do wonder about the Schumachers' relationship. My colleagues in the press room were unhappy that Ralf didn't seem to challenge his brother too much. He admitted that he was playing it safe, that six points were more valuable at this stage of the season than putting everything at risk for another four. Or, put another way: I don't trust my brother and didn't want to tangle with him? It was a little unfortunate to see the pair lapping inches apart, but with no effort from the one behind.

One could then wonder what would happened if Michael had been behind Ralf. Would Michael have just sat there and followed his brother for lap after lap? I doubt it; I may be wrong, but it doubt it. I think that yesterday we might have seen the downside of two Schumachers racing, that they almost know one another too well.

And what is to be done about Juan Pablo Montoya? Two incidents with Michael Schumacher in two races. No stewards' action this time. Michael happy that everything was fair and in order, Juan Pablo not so. Will Frank and Patrick have a little word with their boy and suggest that maybe getting some points would be a better idea than going for glory on lap one? Or is Juan Pablo past pep talks? Whatever, I do feel that we need him to liven up the Schumacher duo as the wild card, preferably not losing his nose cone on lap one at each race.

Whatever David Coulthard may say - he suggested that he was being held up by Trulli, and I don't doubt him - the McLarens were simply outclassed and not in the same league as Williams and Ferrari. We get the usual platitudes from Mercedes' Norbert Haug as to when progress might be made, but they need a huge chunk of it, not a little bit here and there. It may be that both Mercedes drivers were being held up by the Renaults, but they didn't have the grunt to get past, which suggests that little progress has been made since Malaysia. Perhaps Imola!

Once again, it was good to see Renault up there and challenging. We need them to stir it with McLaren, and preferably Ferrari and Williams as well. After all, there's not much else left. Sauber were disappointing - perhaps a truer indication of Bridgestone's performance than Ferrari - and the rest were nowhere.

Jaguar were going backwards, the Honda teams not really getting it together although Jacques Villeneuve had a lively race, and through it all comes Toyota, thrashing Honda again! What is happening at Honda? They've been in Formula One for years, and with this latest programme, they are simply not on the case. They're even admitting to suffering engine failures! The word 'failure' wasn't even in the vocabulary last year, but this year they have a new engine director (again) and while he at least is honest, he's scarcely produced a better unit. I'm told that this year's new engine is actually heavier than last year's and produces less power! Brilliant!

Another little birdie whispered in my ear that several Formula One teams are low on budget to complete the year. Formula One teams will usually survive, but it is a worrying trend. You only have to look at which are manufacturer teams and which aren't to know who is in trouble. And yet at the next race, McLaren will show their new motorhome which cost so much that it would probably keep a back-of-grid team going for a month orve difference between the haves and have-nots and it aint getting any smaller.

Yet there's probably no quick fix, certainly not during the current season. They are just going to have to survive if they possibly can, and the competition gap will grow as teams struggle to maintain the rate of development. It's something that will probably become obvious in the second half of the season, but for the moment, teams will still run massive development programmes, such as the forthcoming Valencia test this week.