Everyone was pretty happy that David Coulthard won the Monaco Grand Prix. It was another face on the top of the rostrum, another team winning, a break in the Schumacher stranglehold and something to eradicate the memory of Austria. Some people were surprised, but you only have to read the pitpass preview and you will see that we thought that there was a strong possibility and how right we were! Wish it was like that all the time!

But McLaren thought that they had a pretty good chance too. Coulthard confirmed that he had better launch control than Williams, and was pretty sure that he would get into the lead off the grid.

It was interesting to watch the practice starts that teams made during practice off the grid as they did last year. Some cars were really soft and just drew away as though they were road cars. Renault were particularly impressive which is ironic given Jenson Button's start, but McLaren had done their homework and knew pretty well how good they were going to be.

Coulthard confirmed that he thought that this would be a good circuit for them - which pretty much means that none of the others will be. Michelin had obviously brought a good tyre although there were worrying factors to that. Button had a tyre break up in practice, and Ralf Schumacher, Mika Salo and Mark Webber all had Michelins break up in the race. Obviously this is something that the company will have to address, but you wouldn't want something like that happening at high speed.

There was another worrying development which affected two cars in Monaco. Both Salo and Massa suffered brake failures, something that you wouldn't necessarily expect at Monaco - but you would expect at Montreal. Brake failure in a Formula One™ car can only be imagined, that completely helpless feeling of being a passenger in an out-of-control rocket and the violence of Felipe Massa's head-on into the tyre wall was pretty shocking. But once again he stepped out of it and once again Formula One™ had good reason to be thankful for safety measures.

There were other, more positive performances in Monaco. The warring duo of Paul Stoddart and Tom Walkinshaw, neighbours from hell in the pitlane, both saw their cars do well. Heinz-Harald Frentzen, of course, finished sixth again, holding off Rubens Barrichello in the Ferrari no less, and Mark Webber did a terrific job battling with Olivier Panis and Nick Heidfeld for some of the race. Sadly, however, there was little reward for Paul Stoddart on his birthday.

As you no doubt read on pitpass, Stoddart and Phoenix Finance (whom Stoddart is convinced is a front for Tom Walkinshaw) are squabbling over $12m - well you would, wouldn't you? - and it's threatening to put one of them out of business - if Tom is indeed looking to these funds to save his team. One might have thought that Bernie could bash their heads together and sort it out and maybe split it 50-50 which would keep them both going, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

A number of other stories featured from the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, but thankfully they were mainly overshadowed by some good racing. At the end of it all, you had Coulthard just ahead of Michael, Trulli just holding on ahead of Fisichella, Frentzen holding off Barrichello and even the Jaguars had a race, even if it was with one another. All in all, it was the kind of racing we want to see and which we had rather forgotten about for the last month. Let's hope there's more.

Bob Constanduros

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