So Michael Schumacher's championship effort is back on track. He has a massive 43 point lead in the championship after the WilliamsF1 team failed to do what everyone hoped and challenge Ferrari. Once again, Rubens Barrichello's effort was compromised by team orders - it was a team decision to put on a two stop to Michael's one - and the appearance of the safety car scuppered his chances.

In many ways, it was a disappointing Canadian Grand Prix, not least for the locals who saw their hero Jacques Villeneuve become the first retirement. Although Olivier Panis saw the chequered flag for the first time this year, the BAR team still has to score points in this year's championship.

But it wasn't all bad news for Honda. It was good to see Takuma Sato finishing a race after so many incidents this year, and generally speaking, he kept his nose clean in Canada. Giancarlo Fisichella scored his third fifth place running, and when you have Ferraris, Williams, Renaults, McLarens and maybe Saubers ahead of you, you need to pick up all you can. But we all know that Giancarlo is good in Montreal and he stuck to the form book.

McLaren's performance was interesting, in that few people could predict that they would finish as high as they did. Sure, I thought that Raikkonen would be in the points, but Coulthard's second place was unexpected.

McLaren don't look a happy team at the moment, and several observers agree with me on that score. They don't see the Mercedes partnership as a particularly happy one but they've been through these rocky patches before. Ron Dennis was busy denying that Mercedes were about to poach a rival engine specialist, but at the same time confirming that Mike Coughlan was trying to get out of his Arrows contract to join McLaren. A team member, incidentally, confirmed to me at the weekend that Dennis tends to hire some people just to get them out of the market and out of the team where they are currently working.

What was strange in Canada was the number of problems in pit stops, which really shook up the order. WilliamsF1 had problems with their fuel rig - again - and Sauber's pit lane limiter software wasn't working properly. Other teams were done for speeding and there were some curious problems.

The really shambolic problem is the final chicane. Why have it if no one uses it? There was a great long list of people who had short cut it during the race, but none was judged to have taken an advantage, so there were no penalties. The authorities in Canada have just spent lots of money sorting out the run-off on the outside - such as it is - and they have tried every possible surface on the inside as the drivers try to decide what they want.

It would have been interesting if Rubens Barrichello had taken the proper line when Coulthard short cut the chicane, because it would have appeared that DC had taken an advantage, but Rubens didn't have very long to think about it and preferred to follow his rival. But something has to be done, it's pretty stupid at the moment.

Otherwise, it was a fairly non-political weekend, thank heavens, when we could concentrate a little bit on the sport and enjoying ourselves. Any proof that Formula One™ was still popular would have been provided by Montreal. It has been a great weekend and the city probably wakes with a hangover today. Talking of which!

Car-by-Car Report