Canadian Grand Prix Review

With the best package of car, driver and tyres, Alonso's performance was simply serene. He led all but five laps during the pit stops; all he had to do was drive at somewhere between 90 and 100% capacity and stay out of trouble, and voila. Having seen off Kimi Raikkonen's stern challenge in the first stint, by the second stops the Renault had almost a full stop's gap over the McLaren. It was, to put it mildly, another utterly dominant, utterly controlled display.

At the halfway point of the season, with six wins to his name, a 25-point gap now over Michael Schumacher and only nine races remaining, Alonso's lead should be unassailable. He remains in line for the most consistent season in F1 history, having scored nothing but wins and 2nds thus far. Should he double his points tally in the second half of the season, he will easily eclipse Schumi's record points haul in 2004. On current form, even the record of 13 wins in a season could be under threat. Incredible.

Renault team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella was announced over the weekend as having re-signed for 2007, with some rumours suggesting that he had in fact put pen to paper as soon as Alonso's deal to go to McLaren next year was announced. Regardless, the gulf in class between the Italian and his Spanish team-mate continued to show. It's not a matter of being able to put in a single dashing lap, it's in the ability to put a whole concerted weekend together where Alonso is just leaps and bounds ahead.

Schumi finished 2nd as the top five positions from Silverstone replicated themselves in Montreal, but in so many ways Michael had to consider himself lucky. He had sneakily crept up to his grid spot slowly on the warm-up lap to keep the front two rows waiting, but it was the Ferrari that had the abysmal start. Finding himself attacked by a feisty Juan-Pablo Montoya, Michael had to take to the grass to avoid a collision - not the only time he would cut a corner during the race.

He grazed the wall of champions coming onto the front straight but got away with it. He was badly held up by Trulli but when he challenged the Toyota, Jarno gave precious little resistance. Michael's Bridgestones did not have the measure of the Michelins, and but for the late safety car intervention after Jacques Villeneuve's shunt he should have been a full pit-stop's gap behind Raikkonen. Back within striking distance in the last few laps, Kimi's slip at the hairpin gifted Schumi what must have been an unsatisfying 2nd place.

After the pace that the 248 F1 showed in Bahrain, to some degree at Imola, and certainly at the Nurburgring, it is clear that Renault is now well ahead again, and McLaren's speed should have Maranello concerned as well. From here, it will be hard for Michael and Ferrari to even dent Alonso and Renault's points margin, let alone overhaul it. Is there going to be enough of a mental, technical and sporting challenge to entice Schumi to race on for another season?

Apart from Villeneuve, the marbles claimed one particular victim, Raikkonen running wide and losing traction at the hairpin, to cap off a race where McLaren probably ought to have got more out of it than they did. Their performance in Montreal had overtones of last season. With the outright pace of the MP4/21 package getting increasingly promising, Kimi had the speed to fight for victory as the first stint showed, plus he also had the strategic advantage, pitting after Alonso at both his stops.

But after the bungled right rear wheel change at the first visit and the costly stall at the second, plus two wide moments at the hairpin, not only did the Finn not win, but he lost 2nd as well. Even if the championship is well out of reach, he can, however, look forward to a second half of the season where wins may no longer be out of the question. The same should also apply to team-mate Montoya, if only he can maintain his speed without the erratics that constantly seem to mar his performances.

From the time the lights went out, he looked like an accident waiting to happen, first with Michael, then with Nico Rosberg (which did put the Williams driver out of the race, but more on that later), then with Ralf Schumacher after he got his nosecone changed, and finally with the feted Wall of Champions. With JPM searching for a drive for next year, and with Toyota filled up and one Renault seat confirmed already, this was not the way to impress bosses in the paddock.

Qualifying 4th with team-mate Ralf mired in 13th was a good starting point. And although he didn't have the speed to hold off Michael and Fisichella, and perhaps gave in slightly too easily when the Ferrari pulled alongside, and although he ended up lapped, in the end it was a deserved 6th to break out of his point-less rut in which Ralf had started getting the ascendancy. As for the German, a nothing race culminated in him trundling around for half the event lapping miles off the pace with grip and handling difficulties.

And for what? It's not like last year, when the finishing order of the preceding race determined the qualifying order and therefore influenced the grid at the following event. At his reduced pace, there was not much data to be gained. With so little attrition, points were hardly for the taking. All Ralf succeeded in doing was make a nuisance of himself, contributing to Villeneuve's accident when Jacques had to go slightly off-line onto the marbles to pass him. Arguably, Ralf should have parked it long before then.

Villeneuve had a right to feel aggrieved by it all. Both he and Nick Heidfeld had had yet another competitive outing, as BMW Sauber put on a mid-season spurt. Putting aside the flexi-wing controversy that nearly spoiled their weekend (for once, the protests weren't against Ferrari!), as well as an indifferent qualifying session, they utilised a late-stopping two-stop plan (what we like to call the 'half-three-quarter strategy' because the stops are roughly at half and three-quarter distance) and both were on course for points.

His demise left the door open for the final points spot, which was taken by David Coulthard for Red Bull in a most impressive drive after a poor qualifying followed by a late engine change. Also on a half-three-quarter strategy and showing excellent race speed, he made two opportunistic moves on Scott Speed and Jenson Button after the safety car intervention to move from 10th to 8th. It provided some welcome sparks in the closing laps of the race.

It also put Christian Klien in his place, the Austrian continuing to be unable to make the kind of impression he left last year. From 12th on the grid, Klien only managed to finish 11th, whereas DC started 22nd but finished 8th. With Christian Horner telling the press that Red Bull are likely to keep only one of their drivers next year, and that Klien needed to up his consistency, being so clearly outdone by his team-mate wasn't the way for Christian to impress his bosses. At least Red Bull got into the points, which is more than could be said for Honda. Like Toyota dumping Mike Gascoyne earlier this year, Honda also did the previously-unthinkable by shuffling aside Geoff Willis to the point where either he jumped or got fired or something in between. Given that Willis along with David Richards masterminded BAR's rise to 2nd in the constructors' championship, it once again demonstrates that in F1, you're only as good as your last result.

Despite both RA106s qualifying in the top 10, Rubens Barrichello suffered his first retirement for the year, and Button proved ineffective all race, his orthodox two-stop strategy no match for those on the more adventurous half-three-quarter tactics. In the end, Jenson only finished 0.4s ahead of Scott Speed in the Toro Rosso. OK, so that was contrived by the safety car, but it said as much about the former Minardi's competitiveness in Canada as it did about Honda's anonymity.

Vitantonio Liuzzi spent most of his race duelling with Mark Webber, with some acrimony after they had touched early on, forcing Liuzzi into an early stop and ruining his strategy - although that was nothing compared to the Australia vs Italy acrimony that was to follow about 24 hours later in Kaiserslautern. Speed meanwhile once again failed to make it through to the second segment of qualifying, but it was one of his best race drives to date that brought a very well-deserved top ten finish.

For Williams it was yet another race to forget in a season which has had far too many of those. Webber missed the first qualifying cut for the second race in a row, a disastrous way to follow up his Monaco heroics, but this time he accused team-mate Rosberg of getting in his way, and Nico admitted that that had been the case. It doesn't change the fact, though, that Webber was already on his second run, and even with the few extra tenths he would have only made the cut in around 14th place. He'd simply cut it too fine.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Nico Rosberg
Inexperience cost Williams dearly

In exactly the same situation the previous lap, Schumi had had the instincts to take to the grass. Given the tightening radius of that right-hander, if Rosberg hung on grimly around the outside then chances were that he was going to get hit. His inexperience cost his team-mate in qualifying, and himself in the race, and for that he earns our 'Reject of the Race' award. Williams now drop to 7th in the constructors' title, behind Toyota, and only one point ahead of Red Bull. Oh dear.

Almost as bad was the situation at MF1, where for the second time in three races their two cars collided, this time with even more serious consequences than at Monaco because Tiago Monteiro knocked Christijan Albers out of the race altogether this time. The irony was that, here was Portugal knocking out Holland on the track (with Albers wearing a special World Cup helmet to boot), only hours before Portugal knocked Holland out on the pitch as well, in a match littered with equally roughhouse tactics!

Franck Montagny backed up his 2nd place at the Le Mans 24 hours by, well, being outpaced by Sakon Yamamoto in Friday free practice. Yamamoto has now almost certainly done enough to ensure that he will take the second race seat away from the Frenchman at some stage, although it's a question of timing. The French GP has been touted as the likely scene of Sakon's GP debut, but Montagny is the only French driver on the grid at the moment ...

But in between there's still the USA GP at Indianapolis, home of formation-finish-gate in 2002 and Michelin-gate (six-car-GP-gate) in 2005. Let's hope for not only a full field but an interesting, competitive race to boot in 2006. Who knows - it could be F1's last race at the Brickyard, and, given the mutual ambivalence between Bernie Ecclestone and the USA and the number of prospective Grand Prix venues knocking on the door, the last race in the USA for some time? One certainly hopes not.