Big news from Monaco was that Bernoldi (Arrows) managed to hold off Coulthard (McLaren) until the pit stops. This is not so surprising at a circuit like Monaco, where overtaking is all but impossible. (memo to Villeneuve - stop pasing at Monaco. It's all but impossible.) what is surprising is that pole-sitter Coulthard was once again let down by his car on the formation lap and had to start at the back of the grid. After the race, it is rumoured that Ron Dennis and Norbert Haug stormed down to the Arrows pit and tore a strip off Bernoldi for holding up Coulthard.
There is no doubt that Coulthard was far, far faster than Bernoldi, nor is there any doubt that as they were racing for a place Bernoldi was under no obligation to let Coulthard through, although perhaps in more sporting times he would have done so, however, since a more "professional", less sporting attitude came into F1, perhaps the reported comment from Ron Dennis, if true, that "Bernoldi was only doing it to maximise the tv coverage for the team's sponsors" could be seen as not only somewhat naive but also a valid reason for doing so, regardless of any other arguments.
My purely personal view is that, if the reports are true, then McLaren's holier than thou "no team orders" ruling can be rephrased as "all teams must help McLaren beat Ferrari regardless of their own interests".
And before you accuse me of pro-Ferrari bias, yes it is true. I am a Ferrari fan. Even when Schumacher is driving. I believe that team orders have always been a part of F1. It is the job of the number two driver to support the number one. It is emphatically not the job of of one team to support another. That is race fixing.
Yet more McLaren related news: it would appear that their head of design, Adrian Newey is now the centre of a tug of war between McLaren and Jaguar.
As far as I can see, and of course all of this is open to correction, Newey signed a contract with Jaguar, to go there when his deal with McLaren ended in August of next year, but was then persuaded to stay. Now both McLaren and Jaguar claim to have his services from next August. This could get messy.
A final rumour is that Honda will decide after Canada whether it will provide engines to BAR or Jordan next season. This could be interesting as both seem to think that they have multi-year contracts.
watch this space.
So far the request for your comments has produced the usual rush of entries: none. I am planning to re-use the space for the letters to publish a Des O'Connor fan site. You have been warned.