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F1 COLUMNS
The Vivid Colours of Montreal

The Canadian Grand Prix was full of incident from the moment the five red lights went out signifying the start of the race and the incidents continued thick and fast until the very end of the race some ninety minutes later.

Button started from pole (only his second) which had the entire BAR team beaming like a bunch of school boys who had just been handed an edition of Playboy for the very first time. A dismal start saw him down in 5th place by the time the pack was through the first corner having been passed by both the Renaults and the McLarens.

Button was skinny on fuel and pitted on lap 16 which explains the pole but still the history books will have him down as the pole sitter in Canada 2005 - perhaps he's concerned that there will be nothing else to remember him by? Jens was looking good for a podium when he made a silly mistake on the chicane which caused him to go wide and instead of taking to the grass he ended up in the notorious 'Wall of Champions' and kissed his bottle of champers goodbye.

At least he had the courtesy of accepting blame for the incident instead of trying to save face and blaming it all on the poor, innocent car. Teammate Sato didn't have a fruitful weekend either. He qualified in 6th but that was as good as it got. Twenty-one laps later he was back in the garage having a shower having to retire the car with a technical failure.

Except that the mechanics figured they would strap bits of his racecar onto the T-car and send him out again to try and make up some places so he wouldn't have to qualify too early. Taku managed to kill that car too but it wasn't his fault - a second technical failure. So still no points for BAR.

The two Renaults under the expert driving skills of Fisichella and Alonso had a cracking start with Fisi leapfrogging 3 cars and leading the race from 4th with teammate Alonso hot on his heels. Fernando had the quicker car underneath him but could not get past the stubborn Italian.

Since team orders are not allowed in F1 anymore Alonso had one of two choices - either overtake or pray that Fisi makes a mistake. Hydraulic failure saw the end of Fisichella after 34 laps - so disappointing for this likeable driver. So now the coast was all clear for Fernando to take his fifth win of the season. Couple of laps later he radios in to let the team know that "there is something wrong with the car".

That little something would be the fact that you hit the wall, Fernando and broke your rear suspension! Nice try to cover your tracks but it was rather obvious - no getting away from the fact that this was an unforced error. First double retirement for Renault and first retirement for Alonso - let's hope that it's not a sign of things to come.

Next up we have McLaren. This team are looking so incredibly quick it probably makes Flavio's blood boil which could explain his sweating problem - wonder how many shirts he goes through in a race weekend. The McLarens and Renaults were on identical strategies with Fisi and Juancho pitting on lap 26 whilst Kimi and Alonso both pitted on lap 25.

With the retirement of the Renaults things were looking very peachy for Montoya - he was quicker than his team-mate and with wife Connie and baby son Sebastian offering support he could only go on to win, right? Wrong! The safety car came out after Buttons 'brush' with the wall which saw Kimi pitting first. Why? Well apparently Montoya was called in but misunderstood (perhaps it was Kimi calling him in, in which case who can blame Montoya for not understanding) and so he went round again.

After his pit stop he tried to get back into the snake weaving its way past the pit exit and that's when the team realised that he must be colour-blind because he failed to see the bright red beacon shining in front of him and went straight through (nearly knocking poor DC out of the way). The result was not a glittering piece of fine crystal but a black flag.

There is no love lost between Kimi and Montoya so it is unlikely that Raikkonen felt even a twinge of compassion for his teammate as he stood on the top step of the podium and sprayed himself with bubbly.

Ferrari finally managed to put in a good performance with both drivers finishing on the podium - Michael in second and Rubens in third, having started from the pit lane (a first in over 200 starts).

Michael lost four places at the start but as Lady Luck started picking off the front-runners Schumi no doubt started grinning. Let's be realistic, Michael Schumacher is not going to win the championship this year but he'll go down fighting.

Williams have now caught up to Toyota and the two teams are sitting joint third on the championship log. Heidfeld had what appeared to be an engine failure and left the race pretty early.

With all the drama going on behind the scenes in the BMW versus Williams debate, Williams notched up a couple of points when the supposedly sublime BMW engine expired. So maybe BMW should stop laying blame on the car and scrutinise themselves a little more closely? Webber ended the race in 5th place chasing Massa for the line.

Ralf Schumacher finished in 6th behind Webber in what wasn't a particularly exciting race for him. Ralf qualified in 10th alongside team-mate Trulli but Toyota were unable to make up any points on McLaren as Trulli had a brake disk explode on him and was forced to retire. Thankfully it caused no significant damage to the car or Trulli because a failure of that kind often results in a very nasty accident.

The Red Bulls weren't really all that impressive. Klien is back in the drivers seat but he had a horrible qualifying session. Klien made up an effective 8 places to finish in 8th but that wasn't due to extraordinary driving skill but rather to lots of retirements from the boys who do know how to drive an F1 car.

DC had close encounters with both the McLarens - once in the pit lane when Kimi was released directly in front of him and then when Montoya muscled his way in front of him when the safety car was out on track. Red Bull maintained their point-scoring season and picked up another 3 points for their efforts.

After some scathing comments from Peter Sauber about his lack of pace Jackie Villeneuve tried to make amends by qualifying in a glorious 8th spot at his home race on the track that is named after his Papa. Jackie failed to get off the line like a rocket and lost places but managed to limit his humiliation and finished in 9th - no points though.

Massa is definitely the ray of sunshine at Sauber. A great drive saw the Brazilian finish in 4th - a podium might be looming soon. And who knows, potentially with BMW engines and insignia next year Sauber could start becoming a real threat.

Albers had a stonker of a qualifying session starting in 15th place - his best ever. He finished the race in eleventh (and last) place. Teammate Friesacher didn't even finish. Minardi are competing with the Jordans and BAR for last spot on the championship race so they will be thrilled that neither of those teams managed any points so the battle is still on!

Jordan? Does anyone really care too much about Jordan? Karthikeyan retired the car with a rear suspension failure after he hit the 'wall of champions' - there should be a rule of some kind that states that unless you are a champion you may not hit that wall or fear being penalised. Monteiro finished the race in 10th.

Sounds impressive but with so many retirements it actually was nothing worth writing home about.

So that's it - a fantastic spectacle of delights for the fans. Indianapolis is the next stop - a track that Montoya is all too familiar with.

The Ferraris will come out fighting and Renault will be pulling out all the stops to get the better of McLaren. Less than a week to go……can hardly wait!