The McLaren team were again dominant during the Grand Prix weekend in Interlagos, Brazil, with Mika Hakkinen leading the way. Williams, so dominant over the last few year's, are now struggling not to be lapped, a goal which has failed during both this year's races.

Last weekend did show that Ferrari and Benetton are the teams who come closest to the flying McLarens. However, Michael Schumacher stated: "We did the best we could with the equipment we had, so there is no reason to be unhappy. But we need to have developments to allow us to challenge the McLarens because I think those guys must be falling asleep out there!"

The concern the McLaren team had this weekend was reliability. They had not done any long runs and Melbourne was not as challenging a circuit for the cars. They also showed that they are still very dominant despite the fact that they are not allowed to run with their new braking system.

Ron Dennis said after the race: "It has been a tiring weekend for the whole team, but obviously well worth the effort. The consistency and the competitiveness of the car and the drivers has been exceptional. Both had a hard race and the need to conserve tyres was the only issue, which was completely understandable with our one-stop strategy. It was a great result for the team."

David Coulthard is not worried about him ending second to Mika Hakkinen three times in a row. "I remain confident about the drivers' championship," he said. "There are some circuits coming up which will suit me much better than Mika so I believe we can have quite a battle. But there is a long way to go. Jacques Villeneuve had a big lead last year but it still went to the final race."