For the second consecutive race, Michael Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya clashed at the start of a Grand Prix, although this time the Williams driver came out worse, in the meantime helping teammate Ralf Schumacher's cause. Richard Barnes analyses the incident and its consequences, and gives Montoya some advice on what to do if he wants to stay in the Championship fight

At Monaco 1988, Ayrton Senna sacrificed nine priceless Championship points with an unforced error that pitched his McLaren out of a commanding lead and into the ever-threatening and unforgiving Monaco barriers. Afterwards, the Brazilian went AWOL for a while, closeting himself inside his apartment to reflect on what might have been, and indeed what should have been. After Sunday's first-lap contact with Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, his second such incident in successive races, it is time for Juan Pablo Montoya to do the same thing.

In both Malaysia and Brazil, Montoya had the edge on teammate Ralf Schumacher, outqualifying the German and being faster and hungrier over the weekend as a whole. Yet, when the all-important Championship points for the two races are tallied, Montoya's meagre reward of eight points is exactly half of Ralf's total for the same two races. The significance of that basic arithmetic will not be lost on Montoya. Ultimately, it is all about winning the Championship. Any driver who denies that is either not in a position to challenge realistically for the WDC, or is trying to trivialise errors that cost him Championship chances.

Montoya at least has the luxury of being able to implicate Michael Schumacher in his misfortunes, a consolation that was denied to Senna following his infamous Monaco mistake. However, Montoya's bluster and overt anger following Sunday's collision are misplaced. They fit the stereotype of the Latin hothead, but hanging such an obvious tag on Montoya is an injustice. For, under the Colombian's brooding outward aggression lies an extremely sharp racing mind.

It's the little things that impress the most. After earning condemnation and a drive-through penalty at Sepang for squeezing Schumacher at the first corner, Montoya found himself in exactly the same side-by-side first-corner situation at Interlagos. This time, he gave his Ferrari rival just enough room. It could be argued that Montoya's behaviour was modified by fear of a further penalty and criticism. But 'fear' is not a word that sits easily with the Colombian. Even though Schumacher came off second-best in the Sepang incident, the contact also ruined Montoya's chances in that race. This time, he seemed determined not to hand the race to teammate Ralf Schumacher on a silver platter again, even if it meant taking a less aggressive line through the first corner.

Which makes Montoya's miscalculation on the run-up to Turn 4 all the more puzzling. Schumacher's move to the left, to defend the inside line to the corner, was neither unfair nor unpredictable, it was simply another instance of Schumacher's trademark hard racing. Even if Schumacher had kept to the conventional racing line, the pass was unlikely. The off-line bumps and dust at Turn 4 are too hazardous to promote regular passing there, and most drivers prefer to bide their time until the circuit's only recognised passing point, Turn 1 at the end of Interlagos' ultra-long main straight.

Possibly Montoya thought that Schumacher was on a two-stop strategy, and that the tighter second sector of the circuit would allow Schumacher to build enough of a gap to avoid being drafted by the Williams down the main straight. One can't blame Montoya if he saw Turn 4 as his last chance to keep his lighter and faster two-stopping rival in check. After the rumoured problems concerning the longevity of the Bridgestone tyres, Schumacher's fastest time in the morning warm-up session and the German's uncharacteristically fast launch from the start, it seemed unthinkable that the German was running anything less than a two-stopper. Even when a hard-charging Rubens Barrichello breezed past Schumacher, the logical assumption was that the Brazilian local hero had pushed the envelope even further, and was trying a rare three-stop strategy in his bid for home GP glory. It was only when Schumacher continued for lap after lap, going further and further past the two-stop 'window', that the penny dropped.

The seeds of Ross Brawn's 'master strategist' reputation were sewn during the era of fat, soft and sticky slick tyres, which provided astounding grip out of the box, but went off-song badly at the slightest maltreatment from the driver. It was an era that encouraged off-the-wall pitstop strategies, where the benefits of fresh rubber could often more than offset the time lost in the extra pitstops. These days the lower pitlane speed limits and the greater wear consistency of the grooved tyres have swung the balance in favour of more conventional strategies. Perversely, the genius of Brawn's tactics on Sunday lay not in trying something radically different when conventional logic demanded otherwise, but in following convention when the opposition expected otherwise.

Had Ferrari repeated their 2000 strategy of running two stops, there is no doubt that the 'wrong' Schumacher (from Ferrari's point of view) would have won, exactly as happened two weeks ago in Malaysia. History has shown that Interlagos is ideally a one-stop race, two-stopping is the domain of the desperate. Schumacher's ultimate triumph at Brazil 2000 was courtesy of Mika Hakkinen's retirement, not any tactical genius. At the time of the Finn's retirement in that race, he was more than ten seconds ahead of Schumacher, and stretching that lead by half-a-second per lap. With each driver having only one more pitstop to make, a Schumacher victory looked unlikely. And, on that day, Michael had done everything absolutely right, passing his McLaren rival at the end of lap one and sprinting away as fast as his legendary racecraft and light fuel load would allow. If that wasn't enough to secure victory then, small wonder that Brawn and Schumacher decided on the faster and more conventional one-stopper for Sunday's GP.

As close as the victory was, the race couldn't have gone much better for Ferrari. The F2002 performed flawlessly, at a circuit which is not Ferrari's favourite. At the same stage last season, even the dominant F2001 was left stranded by the sheer pace of Montoya's Williams-BMW. The concerns about the Bridgestone's longevity proved ill-founded, and the new launch control system on the F2002 worked perfectly and competitively first time. If there were any doubts about which car Ferrari should run for Imola, Rubens Barrichello's second consecutive mechanical failure in the previously rock-solid F2001 have put those to rest permanently. Most of all though, Schumacher struck an important psychological blow against Montoya. After the indignity of Sepang, Schumacher pulled the perfect switcheroo, inflicting the exact same infuriating and race-destroying damage back at Montoya. However unwitting Schumacher's actions may have been, he would have viewed the carnage in his rear-view mirrors with one thought - 'Touche'.

Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn expressed surprise that the Williams cars hadn't been as competitive as expected in the first half of the race. Perhaps Ralf Schumacher felt that he didn't need to be any closer to brother Michael in the early stages, that an eight-second gap was never going to be enough of a lead for the Ferrari if Michael was two-stopping as expected. Ralf has sworn that he will not make it as easy for Michael next time, but the promise has little conviction. Ralf went lead-chasing at Australia, and got a free aeroplane ride and a round zero points for his troubles. Since then, he's kept away from the wheel-to-wheel stuff, and reaped a handsome reward of 16 points from a possible maximum of 20. If that isn't enough to convert Ralf to the Prost school of thought, then nothing will.

Brother Michael will keep doing what he does best - being Michael Schumacher. That means putting himself first - in the team, in his own mind, on the track and in the media spotlight, and letting the rest scrap for second.

That leaves Juan Pablo Montoya. He can continue to wage his own personal war of attrition against Schumacher, pursuing the German with the same relentless obsession and aggression shown by Senna against his nemesis Prost. It's a no-win situation for Montoya. Schumacher has been playing this game for ten years, and has the smarts to handle Montoya both on and off the track. The best Montoya can hope for is to occasionally muscle Michael out of race contention. Almost inevitably, as happened on Sunday, he too will pay the price. Every time that happens, Ralf will be on hand to take another gleeful ten-point chunk out of Montoya's title aspirations.

If Montoya wants to know how to beat Michael Schumacher without wrecking his own race in the process, he needs look no further than ex-McLaren star Mika Hakkinen. For four long and thrilling seasons, the Finn fought against and often beat Schumacher at the peak of his powers - without ever once turning F1 into a contact sport. If Montoya followed Senna's example and spent some time on serious introspection between now and Imola, he could have no better company than videotape copies of the legendary Schumacher-Hakkinen duels of the late 90's.