Michelin can no longer rely on hot weather conditions if they want to supply their teams with a WC-winning tyre; McLaren can no longer relate to Renault as a 'mobile chicane', if they want to hold on to their Top Three spot. Roger Horton reflects on the inevitable reality check that Imola served some of the F1 players

Another race, another victory for the dominant Michael Schumacher/Ferrari/Bridgestone combination - their third of the season and the German Champion's 56th Formula One career win. Rubens Barrichello followed his team leader home and so was able to join in the Ferrari fun on the Podium. It may have been a pretty tedious affair for the neutrals, but in Formula One excellence, this is supposed to equal domination, and at the moment everything about the Ferrari package is working perfectly, so it is up to the rest to raise their collective games.

The fact that Schumacher was able to win without ever really raising a sweat is a stark wake up call to everyone else on the grid that the F2002 is not so much an evolution, but a revolution, and at a stroke it has made all their rivals look decidedly pedestrian.

For Barrichello, this race was really a vindication of sorts. Apart from his weaving antics at Albert Park, the Brazilian has done little wrong all season, and yet he has had to defend himself against all sorts of rumours concerning his future at Ferrari and even the size of his salary should he be retained by the team next year.

In San Marino he was on the pace all weekend and his qualifying speed appeared to take even Schumacher by surprise. During the race he kept his head when he was stuck behind the Williams of Ralf Schumacher and for once his car did not let him down. So even if it's pretty clear that Barrichello is not fast enough to be a Ferrari number one in the post-Schumacher era, he is probably as good a number two as Ferrari could find at the moment.

The overall performance of Ferrari's F2002 has sent a pretty sizable shockwave through the F1 paddock no matter what Ron Dennis may have said in Brazil whilst viewing his rivals' car for the first time. Around Imola the car seemed to be able to ride the kerbs with astonishing ease, and during qualifying it was noticeable just how confident the drivers became that the car would stay stable on the exit of corners despite, at times, having all four wheels off the ground in the middle.

Ralf Schumacher's post race shrug of resignation on the Podium just about said it all concerning the way he felt about being so comprehensibly blown away at a track he had scored his maiden victory on just twelve months ago. It wasn't that the Williamses were suddenly slow at Imola; it was more that the Ferraris were so shatteringly fast. So what happened? "At the moment I am at a loss to explain it," said Michelin tyre boss Pierre Dupasquier after the race. "All our cars performed exactly as we expected them to - it's just that the two Ferraris ahead found a lot of extra speed from somewhere."

Indeed they did, and unless Michelin and their partners can find some improvements soon, Schumacher will have a lock on his fifth title within the next three or four races, not something that will aid Formula One's sagging viewing figures. But whichever way you look at it, this was a disappointing outcome for the Grove based outfit, because this is the second time in succession that they have come away from a race with less than they expected.

Juan Pablo Montoya had a strangely subdued weekend, and his teammate was consistently faster than him in every session, something that has not happened for a while. Imola is a very technical track, with no really challenging corners to test a driver's skill, but even so the Colombian must have been disappointed with his overall performance, despite the post race explanations from his team that the car went to the grid with terminal understeer.

The overall message to Michelin from Imola was pretty clear. Although it's true that the F1 circus usually follows the sun, with average track temperatures well over the 30-degree mark at most venues, to have a tyre that refuses to grip in lower temperatures is not the way to win a Championship. And whenever a Michelin shod car has run in the wet the driver has been left struggling for grip when compared to their Bridgestone supplied rivals. Michelin need to lift their game and they need to do it soon.

For the first time this season there was no major incident during the opening lap of the race. This was a little strange given the fact that overtaking around this Imola track is all but impossible, so the start and first few corners represented the best chance a driver had to improve his position. Perhaps the presence of FIA president Max Mosley ensured that the drivers were on their best behaviour. Of the front-runners only the Williams of Ralf Schumacher and the two Renaults made up places and for the Enstone cars this is becoming a regular occurrence.

Although the Renault engine might not yet be the most powerful on the grid, it is becoming increasingly clear that their car has the best traction out of slow and medium speed corners, and this, of course, is also a factor in their consistently impressive starts. At Imola both cars managed to overtake the Sauber of Nick Heidfeld off the line, and Jarno Trulli even managed to overtake the slow starting McLaren of Kimi Raikkonen only to lose out to the Finn when he moved across to the inside of the track approaching turn one to block his teammate Jenson Button's advances.

As far back as Malaysia the Renaults were getting the attention of the other teams for the way their cars were hard to pass, even though the other car may have been much faster over the entire lap. When the recovering Juan Pablo Montoya tried to overtake Button's Renault for the third time towards the end of that race he was forced to make his move around the back of the circuit, having been out accelerated consistently on the exit from the last hairpin corner leading to the main straight, the circuit's usual overtaking point.

For McLaren this race marked another low point in what is becoming a steady, and for team boss Ron Dennis, worrisome decline. For the past four years his cars have qualified on pole position at Imola, and for three of those four years, McLaren cars have filled both the front row positions. Now, his cars could only manage to qualify in fifth and sixth positions, and, for the first time this year, David Coulthard was beaten fair and square by Button's Renault in the race.

It wasn't that the cars looked to be handling that badly. They rode the kerbs well, but even on the last mainly downward sector of the lap the car's qualifying speed was unimpressive. In the end the cars looked just average, and that is not a word that is usually associated with any car from Woking in recent times. Increasingly the finger is being pointed at the troubled Ilmor-built Mercedes engine, and Mercedes motor sport boss Norbert Haug has all but admitted that his engine is way down on power.

Once your car is seriously down on horses, everything else is affected. Trimming out the downforce only creates new problems, and essentially the team ends up just chasing their tail. Unless and until Ilmor can get its act together McLaren will not win races, and increasingly they are going to struggle to even hold on to their top three place in the constructors' rankings. Not since the team lost their Honda power way back at the end of the 1992 season have McLaren's immediate prospects looked so bleak.

But other team's misfortunes should not be allowed to detract from Ferrari's superb performance. They have managed to introduce their new car 'on the run' during the season and it has proved fast and reliable. There may have been some doubt as to whether Michael Schumacher became the driver with most Ferrari starts at San Marino, but there can be no doubt as to his record as far as race wins and Championships are concerned. He is number one in all departments, and to his rival's consternation his appetite for more seems to be undiminished.