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FORMULA ONE, MCLAREN, A DANGEROUS AWAKENING . At first, three consecutive victories by Ferrari, and now McLaren that wins the last two races. Everything seemed all over after only some Grand Prix races. Now, unfortunately for Ferrari, almost halfway the season, McLaren has started to win again. Maybe this is the right thing. Who knows if Ferrari fans would have appreciated that Ferrari won hands down the world championship after so many years since it has not won? Yet, as the most passionate supporters claim, hunger for victory is such that Ferrari must go ahead regardless of everyone. What is certain is that reaching final victory will not be so simple as it seemed at the start of the season. Rather than Ferrari supremacy, what really astonished the public were McLaren problems. Indeed Hakkinen and Coulthard had to deal with a number of troubles and this meant a good opportunity for Schumacher and Barrichello to seize on the spot, while awaiting that current champions managed to recover. And this is exactly what happened. And unfortunately for all those who thought that Ferrari would win the title with no problems, the real battle seems to start only now. In fact, in the last race McLaren won for the second time, thus repeating Silverstone success. Worth of mention is mainly Coulthard who, only a few hours after the plane crash that left him miraculously unhurt, managed to support Hakkinen to the final victory, showing great courage and team spirit. Schumacher should partly be blamed for his 5th place gained at Montmelò. The German pilot, who started in pole position, made two almost disastrous pit stops, and above all made a mistake when changing tyres. During one of the two pit stops, he even drove off too hurriedly, thus knocking down Stepney, the chief mechanic. A latent tension and the awareness that the return of his eternal rivals will force him to fight and suffer again, could partly explain even a fratricidal duel with no holds barred. In fact, after having been overtaken by Coulthard, the Ferrari pilot was tailed by the Williams driven by his brother Ralf, who tried to overtake him several times. This family slight may be justified by the fact that Schumacher had evident problems with a tyre. Yet, Schumi senior did not give in and the two pilots even risked collision at a dangerous speed. Then here came the odd man out, Barrichello, who taking advantage of their fight managed to overtake both of them. The race ended with the two Ferrari behind McLaren cars, but it also gave a worrying signal about the nervous resistance of the German pilot. "A race is a race and I cannot do a favour to anybody" is a phrase that could justify his behaviour. But to tell the truth, Schumacher has repeatedly showed that when he is under pressure he usually starts to make wrong strategic choices. And now that the world championship is reopened, disputes and scuffles are certainly destined to continue.  Paolo Ghisoni

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