Roger Horton returns from the Silverstone paddock with a few insights and reflections on the race's events

Mika Hakkinen won the British Grand Prix in a totally dominating display of high-speed driving, effectively silencing his critics and blowing away the rumours that he no longer had the motivation to fight it out at the front. True, his teammate was effectively sidelined at the first corner, and Championship leaders Michael Schumacher and Ferrari were in more or less 'cruise and collect' mode, but Hakkinen, on a two stop routine, always looked fast and committed, the way a true winner should.

Indeed, as his team boss Ron Dennis revealed afterwards, the Finn's blistering speed was the team's main concern during the race. "For at least fifty percent of the race the biggest problem we had was to slow Mika down," Dennis said. "It is always something you have to do with great care, because a driver driving as quickly as possible is concentrating and focused; to deliberately drive off the pace requires a different type of concentration and very often leads to mistakes. So I feel particularly pleased that we managed the race with the pit boards that allowed him to convincingly win, but at the same time look after the car, the tyres and the engine."

Then, in a remark clearly aimed in Ferrari's direction, he added: "So I don't know just how much more (speed) we had, but we had a great deal in hand."

Hakkinen's return to the McLaren-Mercedes motorhome was pure theatre, carried - piggyback style - on the shoulders of McLaren team coordinator Jo Ramirez. He was greeted with a standing ovation by the team's management and guests. For a driver without a win since the Belgian Grand Prix, almost a whole year ago, it was a moment to be enjoyed to the full and he was happy to pose with his winner's trophy until every photographer had taken his shot.

For David Coulthard, and those hoping for a season-long Championship battle, this was just about the worst possible result. It will always be the case that when you have two charging drivers and only one fast line through the first corner, you will have contact and controversy. In this case, his contact with Jarno Trulli was pretty much a fifty-fifty racing accident. Coulthard was clearly ahead, and as his team boss Dennis remarked afterwards that, "Races are not won on the first corner, but they are often lost on them."

Coulthard was not to know that Ferrari were going to struggle so badly for outright speed, and getting caught behind a Jordan was not something he could really afford to do at that stage, so backing off and losing a position was never a realistic option. Once again, though, this will give many the chance to criticise the Scot's driving, something that has become a ritual in recent seasons, perhaps deservedly in the past but hardly fair on the evidence of this year's results.

One area of support for Coulthard came from his old boss at Williams, Patrick Head, who was particularly scathing in his criticism of Jarno Trulli's driving. Head, perhaps remembering some incidents between Trulli and Jenson Button last year, said: "For Trulli to interfere with one of the Championship contenders I think is unacceptable, he seems to do that sort of thing rather too often."

A clue to Trulli's mindset, going into the race, was clear from comments he made just after he had qualified in fourth position, equalling his best previous performance in Canada. "For sure I will be pushing as hard as I have been pushing in the last few races, I don't care anymore for reliability," the Italian stated. "I just go flat out and see what happens at the end of the race. I don't want to be blamed anymore because the team feel I am not strong enough (to keep going) through the race.

"I was taking care too much of the car's reliability, now I just go flat out all through the race and for sure I will do a good race, but I don't think I can match the pace of the best team." For good measure he also claimed that the car he raced at Silverstone was basically the same car he drove in Melbourne, and with no developments in-between.

Clearly the relationship between Trulli and the Jordan team is under some strain, and some of the problems can be traced to recent comments attributed to the team's senior management, questioning their driver's fitness and commitment. Going into that first corner, Jarno Trulli was a driver with an important point to prove and David Coulthard was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Once again tyres played an important element of what transpired on the track. At Bridgestone, their new family of compounds - which were first introduced at Magny-Cours - worked well for all their users, and there was general agreement that they made a significant step forward performance-wise. For Michelin, this was another lesson on their learning curve, and once it rained just as the first practice session on Friday afternoon was coming to an end, the data gathered during the day's running was made largely redundant, as the rain 'greened up' the track.

As a result, all the Michelin-shod teams had to pretty much guess as to which compound to use, with the Williams and Benetton teams both choosing to use the harder tyre option as they feared that the softer option compound would grain in the race. In the actual event this proved not to be the case, and was one of the factors that assisted Jaguar to get both their cars past the Benettons.

Once again we saw a Williams suffering a loss of speed after a tyre change, and it was Juan Pablo Montoya's turn at Silverstone, after Ralf Schumacher's similar experience in France. Montoya had been challenging the Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello for third position, but after the Colombian's second stop he was unhappy with the balance of his car, and fell well behind his fellow South American.

Understandably, Michelin boss Pierre Dupasquier had defended his company's tyres after the French race, insisting that it was impossible for there to be a quality control difference between different sets of the same batch of tyres, and he had strongly suggested that it was the way the tyres had been scrubbed beforehand that had led to the difference in performance in France.

At Silverstone, with Williams using the harder option, they were able to use brand new tyres for the race, so just why Montoya suddenly had a handling problem after changing tyres is currently not known. Michelin were adamant that it was not a problem of their making, so it was left to Williams's technical director Patrick Head to diplomatically find a reason for Montoya's problem after the race. "I wouldn't say that we get any indication in testing that there are differences between the tyre sets, so one has to say that either the track conditions were different, or that the pressures didn't come to quite the same level as had been requested," he said.

When pressed further, Head admitted that, "Yes it was mysterious, but there is a lot of mysteries about Formula One racing," before smiling and dismissing any more speculation on the subject. Tyres may be a boring subject to many followers of the current F1 scene, but developments race by race are affecting the results. However, even after an in depth talk with a tyre engineer, it's possible to leave more confused than when you started.

There was another question concerning team orders at Williams when, for the second time in two races, Montoya found himself being held up by his teammate Ralf Schumacher. This time Ralf didn't claim any radio problems - as he had in France - for not obeying the team's request that he let Montoya through, so he could attack Barrichello's third place.

With the team's two drivers on different fuel strategies - Montoya stopping twice and Ralf just once - Montoya needed to have a clear track ahead of him to maximise his chosen strategy. Ralf's refusal to yield effectively ruined that, although the Colombian didn't help his own cause when he stopped short of his markers during the critical second stop, and so the extra time the pitstop took cost him any chance of finding an easy way to overtake Barrrichello anyway.

Controlling the on-track actions of these two strong-willed drivers is not going to be easy, and one suspects that it will get worse before it gets better, but it will be interesting to observe from the outside. Teammate rivalries can add some much needed interest to spice up the racing, and right now the racing can do with all the spicing up possible.

Once again the Honda-powered cars came away from a race without any points, and their pain was further enhanced by seeing the two Ferrari-powered Saubers in fifth and sixth places. Sauber are now an impressive fourth in the Contructors' Championship standings, ahead of both Jordan and BAR, and Honda must be concerned that their two teams are being outraced by a team using one-year old Ferrari engines with two inexperienced drivers in the cockpit. There is a going feeling in the paddock that the image of Honda's invincibility is slipping away, and with archrival Toyota about to enter the F1 arena next season, Honda - together with their partners - need to lift their game considerably.