Best of all for me was sitting at the media center, gathering all the latest reports from each team and the detailed results on what was going on at the track (fastest lap / speed / intermediate sections / who did what / announcements, etc.). Lunch at the Williams F1 BMW hospitality area, where I was a guest of Petrobras, the Brazilian Oil Company and official fuel supplier for Williams—delicious lobster salad, white wine and fresh strawberries for desert, espresso coffee...

On Friday, I was sitting near David Sears, owner of the SuperNova F-3000 racing team and manager of JP Montoya. The Friday incident with JP and JV (Jacques Villeneuve) has brought controversy as to whom should have said what at the driver’s meeting. JV has said that JP was braking too hard as if to block cars behind him and he ended up asking if he (JP) is trying to kill someone. JP responded by saying that he is not the one who kills (this referring to the incident in Australia involving a JV wheel that flew off the track and killed a track marshal). JV grabbed JP, and other drivers stopped them from actually getting into a fight.

Also in the news was JV’s new restaurant on famous Crescent Street in downtown Montreal. It’s called Newtown, which is a transliteration of Villeneuve’s name in English. The locals did not like that, since he is a French Canadian and it should have a French name. He said that they should all grow up and think international.

Enough forked tongues.

I spoke with Barichello and said I would pray for rain. He said he would take anything he could get. After smacking the car into the wall (a.k.a. the "welcome to Quebec" wall) during qualifying, he managed to place 5th on the grid. As for the rain on race day, I lied. I have to give him credit for running light in fuel and dangerously approaching Ralf in the first laps until he spun due to "overachievement" (it’s the best word I could find!). His shunt with Montoya was inevitable and just a racing accident.

Non-race celebrities: Nicolas Cage, guest of BAR.

Race Celebrities: Emerson Fittipaldi

Former F-1 race drivers working as commentators: John Watson, David Hobbs, Martin Brundle.

Women/models: none to speak of, several wanna-bes showing off their "constructed silicones".

Best relaxed chats: I spoke with Jane Braun, wife of Ross Braun at Ferrari. Also with Dr. Sid Watkins and his driver Alex Dias Ribeiro. I remember Alex in the racing days in Brazil. Dr. Watkins was waiting for Schumi to give him a hat he had promised for a handicapped child. He was a mentor for one of my friends who studied medicine in the UK.

All in all, it was nice to be at the track again. I just realized that I was never a spectator in Montreal—I always got pit passes. On the way home, I saw Bruce Murray from AONE on the Canadian side and lost him when I crossed the border. I was "cruising" (that is putting it lightly) with a couple of M3s and a Ferrari 512 and, when approaching Concord, NH, I had a couple of serious problems: 1) the spark plug well of the first cylinder was full of oil, spilling over to the next one in line. I called Brain Shorey, who suspected leaking from the oil cap; 2) then my dashboard started lighting up like Christmas, starting with the generator light and shorting all other gauges (except temp). I was keeping a close watch on the oil pressure gauge and got really scared when it went down to nothing while at 75 mph (I thought I had blown the engine) but the car was running fine. Hit a bump and all the gauges started working again. [Then what are you worried about?—Ed.]