The Brazilian Grand Prix provided joy for some, disappointment for others, and anger for a certain Colombian. Roger Horton reviews the main events from the third round of the 2002 season

This was a great Michael Schumacher performance. He fought an unsorted car all weekend, qualified it well ahead of where it deserved to be, and paced himself to an unlikely victory that must have caused much concern to all his Championship rivals. It is race weekends like this that Schumacher earns the enormous amounts that Ferrari pays him: his driving was precise, measured, and deceptively quick and, on this day at least, there was no one to touch him.

In recent times we have grown accustomed to judging the likely outcome of the race by feeling the power of the sun on our faces. If you are reaching for the sun block by Friday morning then the odds are that the Michelin-shod cars are in for a strong race. The shape of the grid backed that assumption up with six Michelin runners in the top seven, with Juan Pablo Montoya on pole in his Williams. When race morning dawned sunny and warm, it looked for all money as if this race was set to follow a familiar pattern.

The trouble was, no one told Michael Schumacher or Ferrari. In Malaysia, the Michelin runners had shocked their rivals by the consistency of their pace, and this was aided the longer the race went as the track 'rubbered in.' Ralf Schumacher drove to an unchallenged victory, surprising even his own team with the ease with which he dealt with a two-stopping Rubens Barrichello. As the Ferraris flew off into an unchallenged lead at Interlagos, all the smart money had to be that they would be repeating their Malaysian tactics.

Essentially it was here that Ralf, at least, lost any chance of winning this race. The Malaysian winner, hampered perhaps by too much understeer, which was dialled out by a wing adjustment during his single pit stop, fell too far back to be in contention to overtake during the pit stop sequence. Even when he closed up towards the end of the race, the younger Schumacher never looked a real threat to his elder brother. In the end he seemed happy enough with second place, and perhaps that is the best result he could have achieved on the day, but if he is ever to emerge fully from his brother's shadow he is going to have to win on days like these.

The ease with which he allowed the two stopping Rubens Barrichello to breeze past him on his first attempt was also more than a little surprising. There is nothing that says he couldn't have defended his position more vigourously, especially against his team's main rivals.

So in the end Ferrari's gamble of starting the season with last year's updated car undoubtedly paid off. A win and a third in the first two races was a good return for the investment they made in the older car. It is now pretty clear that Ferrari always intended to start the season this way, and only the Williams's extraordinary reliability has reduced the pay back that they could have expected.

The main talking point of the race was, of course, the first lap contact between pole man Juan Pablo Montoya and World Champion Schumacher. For the first time since he entered Formula One, Montoya went public with his anger over another drivers' on track actions. It was a mistake. Ever since he made his debut in Melbourne last year, Montoya has portrayed himself to the outside world as a man unaffected by the actions or words of others and a myth of invulnerability has been building around him.

At Interlagos, he lost the battle to Schumacher both on and off the track and it made him look weak. Last year, when he was cruelly taken out from the lead of the race by Jos Verstappen's mistake, he waved to the crowd and reacted with the calm assurance of a winner who knows his day will come. He should have repeated the dose again this year and limited the damage that his impetuosity had caused him.

This does not mean, of course, that he was solely to blame for what happened going into turn four on that opening lap. In the highly legalistic way that every single racing incident is now analysed frame by frame to apportion 'blame', Schumacher, having swerved aggressively to his left to block the Colombians advance, then moved again, to the centre of the track to improve his entry line for the corner, something which the 'one move' rule expressly forbids.

In Montoya's mind, having left his rival room, both at the start, and through the latter part of the first corner sequence after an error had allowed the Ferrari driver alongside, Schumacher should have reciprocated going into turn four. He has, perhaps, now learnt the lesson that so many drivers who have fought it out wheel to wheel with Michael Schumacher over the years have learnt. That Schumacher will not give you one inch he doesn't have to, and often, as in Malaysia, he will take a few feet that he doesn't own and still come out ahead.

If a driver is going to beat the German over a whole season he must essentially play the game by his rules. Montoya might well have avoided his later troubles had he employed his rival's aggressive blocking tactics off the line, once it became apparent that his start was not the best. As it was, he only half moved over to squeeze the Ferrari and so allowed Schumacher's challenge to continue into the first corner from where his late braking caused the error that was to allow Schumacher past.

Schumacher's start line 'chop' may well be the ugliest move in modern racing, but it has been proved effective on many occasions and it is sanctioned by the FIA. There is no virtue for Montoya to 'turn the other cheek' in these situations by giving his main rival racing room, when seconds later the door is going to be slammed in his face.

So Montoya may have lost the battle in Brazil, but in no way has he lost the war. Three races into this new season we have seen enough to suggest that the Colombian is the only driver with the speed and the equipment to beat all comers on any track in a straight fight. Montoya has previously shown that he has the ability to learn from his mistakes and come back stronger than ever. Schumacher might well have outscored his rival by eight points in this race, but perhaps he has also lit a fire in the Colombian that will see him come back and burn him.

If you were handing out prizes for the title of most improved team, then Renault would win hands down, and Jenson Button is perhaps the biggest beneficiary of his team's improved form. Last season, in his first three races he qualified sixteenth, seventeenth and twentieth. This year his record is eleventh, eighth, and seventh, and in Brazil he recorded his second straight fourth place finish. Perhaps it is even more impressive that at Interlagos his improved car saw him reducing the gap to pole position in qualifying from a huge 2.449 seconds last year, to just 0.551 seconds this time around.

In Formula One speak, this is akin something of a minor miracle, and it is a credit to the policy Renault have employed from the start of their F1 return: hire some good proven people and then let them get on with the job. Already the front-runners are aware of Renault's strengthening challenge, and it can't be long before we resurrect the 'big four' phrase that was shorthand in the mid nineties for Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, and Benetton as they were known then.

It was a shame to see Jarno Trulli's engine expire so close to the end of the race when he was holding down a secure fourth. There has been much rubbish written concerning the Italian's supposed weakness during races, and in Brazil, around one of the toughest tracks on the calendar, he was able to show that he was stronger than his engine. The Trulli/Button driving combination looks to be strong and evenly matched, and both drivers now have a huge opportunity to secure their futures with a team now about to be major contenders. Poor Giancarlo Fisichella must be wondering just what he did wrong to be sacked from an outfit just as it started to perform to its potential.

So this race saw the gloves finally come off between Michael Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya. Montoya has vowed revenge and in doing so he has probably added millions to the viewing figures that can be expected for the next race in San Marino. No doubt he will benefit, before that race, from some down-to-earth-advice from his team boss Frank Williams, who has been down this particular road a few times before.

"Don't get mad, get even", would, perhaps, be some appropriate advice. Montoya has the car, the speed, and the race craft to more than get even with the reigning World Champion. All he needs, maybe, is a little more patience and little more luck.