Formula One: Montoya and Mclaren Ready to Lay Down the Gauntlet

The nailbiting battle for the lead of Sunday's Brazilian grand prix between Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams-BMW and Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren-Mercedes struck the right note as the formula one business signed off for its five-month winter break, raising the prospect of some serious competition in 2005.

Montoya, who will join Raikkonen at McLaren next season, won the final confrontation by one second and, though it will take time for Ferrari's grip on the winners' circle to be loosened, the race at Interlagos served as a reminder of just what a capricious business formula one can be.

Ferrari had the pace in Brazil but circumstances conspired to prod their vulnerable underbelly and raise hopes that they will be beaten in the future. Michael Schumacher crashed in practice, started at the back of the grid and finished seventh. Rubens Barrichello, from pole position, lost crucial time in the early damp stages on his Bridgestone intermediate tyres and finished third.

It was scant consolation that this was Barrichello's first podium finish in his home grand prix. With 262 points in the constructors' championship compared with the runner-up BAR-Honda's 119, Ferrari still go into next season as favourites but there are definite signs that this state of affairs may not last for ever.

McLaren, after a dismal start, have reasserted their position as a consistent challenger and Williams have edged forward in the past few races and at least received the psychological boost of victory in the final race to fuel a raw determination to raise their game further.

Yet it is the progress of BAR-Honda, under the stewardship of David Richards, which really took the season by storm. Sceptical observers dismissed pre-season testing times from Jenson Button and Takuma Sato as little more than promotional grandstanding, running light on near-empty fuel tanks, in an effort to keep their sponsors sweet.

That quickly turned out not to be the case. Button took his first podium finish with a third place in Malaysia, then rocked everybody by joining Schumacher's Ferrari on the front row for the San Marino grand prix at Imola, a race the young Englishman led for the first few laps. The Button-Richards partnership threatened to be derailed after the driver announced that he would be moving to Williams next year but was prevented from doing so after the FIA contracts recognition board ruled his BAR contract took priority. He is now reconciled to remaining with BAR, his disappointment allayed in part by the prospect of an even more powerful Honda V10 engine powering his car.

On Sunday, though Button's engine suffered a rare failure, he remains confident of winning his first grand prix next season.

One might have to look to the McLaren squad in 2005 for the real fireworks as the motivated, but volatile, Montoya attempts to wrest No1 status from Raikkonen. Montoya may have claimed a psychological boost after winning in Brazil but, despite a temperament which the Williams team found rather trying, he is suf ficiently shrewd to know that he will now be going head-to-head with the fastest driver in the business after Schumacher. Ron Dennis, McLaren's team principal, believes his management abilities will help bring the best out of Montoya while softening his moody qualities. "Truth is," said a Williams insider, "Ron doesn't know what's going to hit him. Juan Pablo can be a real handful and I don't think he quite understands that."

But McLaren have a great record in managing dynamic pairings, the most spectacular being Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. In two seasons Senna drove Prost, the sitting tenant, out of the team after shaking him with his speed and determination.

But a confident Raikkonen said: "Whatever Montoya does makes no difference to my position in the team."