Motorsport: Ferrari duo fend off Montoya charge with ease

By DAVID TREMAYNE

As races go, yesterday's Italian Grand Prix at Monza effectively finished around the fourth lap. That was when it became clear that Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams-BMW, which had started from pole position, was not going to be able to stem Ferrari's red tide.

The Anglo-German team had already seen Ralf Schumacher retire after three laps, having burst through to lead from third place on the grid. The German was just about to pull over and let Montoya back into the lead, having pushed ahead illegally at the first corner, when his engine blew up. Montoya, who was singularly unimpressed by his team-mate's antics, evoked an audible groan from everyone who had come here hoping desperately for a change of script. It was not to be.

Rubens Barrichello, running a two-stop refuelling strategy which gave him a lighter car in the early stages, made the most of it to snatch the lead from Montoya, braking from 200mph for the tight first-corner chicane at the start of lap five. By the end of it, Michael Schumacher was side-by-side with the Colombian as they went by the pits, and he, too, moved ahead with ease.

Barrichello eventually won by 0.255s from Schumacher. A Ferrari one-two is nothing new, this year (this one was the eighth) or at Monza. But even the faithful Italian fans, the tifosi, seemed to sense that yet another victory was overkill.

This was not Ferrari's fault, of course. You cannot decry excellence.

On Saturday, Williams-BMW had trumpeted its breach of the magic 19,000rpm barrier and had celebrated when Montoya deposed the 1982 world champion, Keke Rosberg, as the fastest man ever to qualify a Formula One car.

Montoya's lap of 259.827 kph (161.484 mph) eclipsed the Finn's best, set at Silverstone for Williams 17 years previously. It had kindled hope, especially in Montoya's heart, that this might just be the place where he could beat the red cars. Instead, his Machine also failed to go the distance, retiring after 33 laps and a fruitless chase of the Ferraris, when his suspension broke.

That left the Ferrari management of Jean Todt and the Englishman Ross Brawn with nothing more taxing to do with the rest of their afternoon than to decide how they wanted to stage manage this latest triumph.

Barrichello had opened an advantage over Schumacher early on since the world champion was running with sufficient fuel to make only one stop. But when he stopped for fuel on lap 19, Schumacher took over. He stayed there until his single stop on lap 28, whereupon Barrichello went ahead again.

By the time the Brazilian made his second stop on lap 37 they were close again, and Barrichello was just able to squeak back out of the pits still in the lead. Or so it seemed.

"Ross said it would be tight, and we dealt with it accordingly," was all Schumacher needed to say. "After Rubens' second pit stop, we decided not to do any more overtaking."

The remainder of their race was soap opera, with Schumacher dropping back until 18.2s separated them by the 46th lap. The world champion slid wide in the Lesmo corner on three occasions, but, in truth, this was just another drive in the park for him. Later, though he and Barrichello allowed their beaten opposition to unlap themselves, it meant nothing. Nor did the way in which Barrichello seemed to keep Schumacher at bay as they lunged for the line. It was a parody of the five-car sprint to victory that marked the 1971 race, won by the Englishman Peter Gethin in a BRM, which could also have been deposed yesterday as the fastest-ever grand prix had the Ferrari drivers not so obviously been cruising.

Somehow it was fitting that Schumacher was completely underwhelmed by breaking the record for points scored in a season.

"It was my record anyway," he said.

There were some excited people in Monza. Eddie Irvine turned an excellent qualifying result into a solid, and sorely needed, third place for Jaguar.

Jenson Button scored points for fifth place after obeying a team order to let his Renault team-mate Jarno Trulli move ahead for fourth.

Fellow Briton David Coulthard finished seventh after damaging his front wing in a first-corner collision with his team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen.

Brazilian driver Felipe Massa, having been the first man in Formula One to wear the Hans safety collar, also became the first to have a penalty of 10 grid positions for the next race imposed on him by the stewards, following a collision with Spanish driver Pedro de la Rosa.

- INDEPENDENT