Williams versus Ferrari, Bridgestone and Michelin seemingly on equal footing; that’s pretty much the way we thought it might be here in Montreal. Of course, the rain rather dampened the fire at the end of qualifying, which was really a shame, because we like those last minute shoot-outs.

But Juan Pablo Montoya is on pole for the second race running, and now all he has to do is hope that his launch control works better than it did in Monaco where he lost the advantage of pole at the start - and the team has told him that the problem has been fixed. Incidentally, did Juan Pablo have a special engine in his car? A photographer friend told me that they had to jack up the front of the car to start it every time. Did they have so little fuel in it that they needed to make sure that the fuel pump was picking it up?

So Ferrari have been beaten into second and third on the grid, which is no bad thing for competition, of course. Michael is saying that the bubble had to burst sometime and this was the kind of thing they expected to happen. Rubens, of course, is utterly grateful to be up there, given the incidents that he has had in both practice and qualifying today.

Everyone is wondering what’s going on at McLaren. A colleague noted that there are distinct factions within the team, certain people who talk with one another and not others. Last night, a team member confirmed that the problem is with horsepower, top end speed, chassis but not aerodynamics. Chassis is difficult to fix, so is horsepower, although they’ve got a little more here, which Kimi Raikkonen has once again used to his advantage to beat his teammate.

And did I tell you about Giancarlo Fisichella in the preview? And have you put your money on him to get into the points? There he is up in sixth place, great stuff, a good job, and not bad for Bridgestone either, proving that the cards are pretty equally dealt this weekend, which is good news, proving that both Michelin and Bridgestone are doing a good job.

Nick Heidfeld is back where he should be, up among the top ten after Sauber’s Monaco blip. Coulthard is making excuses about traffic etc while Villeneuve, who never got out at the end when his engine seized as he was exiting the pit lane, has exceeded his own expectations of the new BAR while they wait for an all-new engine which has suffered reliability problems, but will soon be in use.

And Jarno Trulli salvaged a top ten placing, in spite of problems for him and his teammate. This is a very professional outfit quietly working away at getting back on top, and Jarno himself is beginning to relax a little. He is so professional, and so highly strung and determined, that perhaps he is a little bit his own worst enemy.

So seven teams in the first ten, and that’s always healthy. Irvine is happy to be up in the 14th place, the team using a new version of the Cosworth, and to good advantage. Sato has mainly kept his nose clean, although his Honda blow-up was spectacular (sorry, but there were two Honda engine problems in qualifying, with the new spec engine!). Most disappointing of all was Arrows who really were expected to do better, but Tom’s Gloucester team won Britain’s rugby championship, so it wasn’t all doom and gloom. And Toyota, I suppose, weren’t expected to do well on this totally unknown circuit, but they do know now that a car has to handle on kerbs and bumps and dust and everything else - if they didn’t know that before.

Montreal night-life, meanwhile, beckons as it always does. There are team dinners in superb restaurants, or jumping hamburger joints and various clubs of a more masculine interest. Not that I have had any chance to enjoy them, of course, but the city is jumping. There are Ferraris everywhere, good hotels, good bars (a friend visited an excellent Irish place with a band last night) and that’s the only thing that is lacking: good music. But maybe that’s because I haven’t found it yet. Now if we could have a brand of Indianapolis’s Slippery Noodle blues bar, that would be fine, man.

Bob Constanduros