Coulthard was referring to his first, and failed, attempt to overtake Michael Schumacher in France.

Michael had track position but was obviously struggling with a car that could not brake as well as the McLaren (it could have been brakes or tyres) and was very reluctant to let Coulthard past. I believe that the rules state that the first car to a corner has the right to the line through the corner and the overtaking car is obliged to work around that.

Schumacher knew that an unobstructed drive out of that corner would give Coulthard a very good chance of overtaking, so why should he make it easy?

Sure it was not very sporting in the pure sense of the game. But, David, if you want to drive in a race where sportsmanship prevails you may have to retire from the highest paid game in town and go race in the local amateurs club where drivers are not paid telephone numbers to win.

And then when you did overtake, you tried to run Schumacher off the track. Surely, if the action of Schumacher was not within the rules, your subsequent action was just as bad? Or was it done to pay him back for doing it to you? The sort of thing one expects in a schoolyard?

Or was it to make sure that he could not get a decent run into the next corner?

That is a valid reason. But isn’t that exactly what he did before?

The way I see it, you gave Schumacher the ideal opportunity to lock wheels with you and end the race for both of you. If he knew he had a problem with his car that would have been the ideal outcome for him. But maybe he was too sporting to do that.

Several readers have written in accusing me of being biased towards McLaren.

I try very hard to remain neutral as I believe that this is what our readers want. It is impossible to do this job without having some subjective bias, but I promise that mine is not McLaren. In fact it is not one of the leading teams, but then, it is not Prost either.

In the early part of the season McLaren definitely had a reliability problem. That problem now appears to be behind them.

On the other hand Ferrari seem to have run into random reliability problems, fortunately for them most were during testing and not races. Their reliability is not as good as it was last year, and I think they are not as reliable as McLaren at present.

I suspect that Ferrari are forced to overstress their engines to stay on McLaren’s pace. Last year it was common knowledge that McLaren had a horsepower advantage and although it is not that obvious this season, I still feel that they are a little more powerful.

Ferrari do not seem to accept that they have a problem. In Canada there was definitely something wrong with Schumacher’s car, in Brazil Barrichello’s car failed and Schumacher finished the race at a reduced pace and even the exhaust failure in Monaco could have been a reliability problem.

It was also obvious that both Ferraris could not match the McLaren's under braking. Both Coulthard and Hakkinen were braking significantly later than Schumacher or Barrichello. Take into account that this was when they were behind the Ferraris, and therefore in their turbulence, on must assume that with clear air the difference would be even greater.

This could have been because Ferrari were experiencing excessive tyre wear and it may be easy to overcome in future races, but it was patently obvious that Schumacher was struggling to stay in front of Coulthard and even Hakkinen did not have a problem catching Schumacher.

This is not a case of favouring McLaren – it is just my opinion based on observation. Ferrari are fast, but not as fast as McLaren and if it was not for Schumacher they would not have a shot at the championship this year.

The season is not over and Ferrari could improve – I hope they do.

The French Grand Prix certainly had a few surprises. Barrichello moving up to second place at the start was one of them, but it was not long before Coulthard overtook him and started catching up with Schumacher.

Both Ferrari's seem to be on the pace on new tyres, but it was obvious that their tyres lost grip much faster than McLaren. Even if Schumacher’s engine made it to the end Ferrari could not have done better than third and fourth in France. Admittedly, if Ferrari did not have the problem on the right front wheel, they may have managed to get Barrichello out in front of Hakkinen (who had a slow stop) but how long would it have been before his tyres let him down again?

The difference in tyre wear between Ferrari and McLaren was astounding. I am still wondering why. The only reasons that I can come up with is aerodynamics or chassis but I can’t see how that could account for such a dramatic difference.

Villeneuve drove an excellent race to finish in fourth and it was significant that he did not hold anyone up – his car was fast enough to get there on merit!

I was surprised to see Trulli faster than Frentzen, but even more surprised to see them almost on the pace. Just the promise of works engines in 2001 seems to make the Jordan faster.

Both Prost's finished (although I am sure that it was because there were no second hand car yards along the way where the drivers could leave them) but Jaguar did as poorly as always.

Although Williams did better than they have for a while now and Button did very well, I had the distinct impression that Ralf Schumacher was struggling.

The race was not as uneventful as I expected it to be. We saw some overtaking and a lot of dicing for the leading positions.