The McLaren Mercedes steam roller continued its relentless advance as Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard left the opposition in the dust at the Circuit de Catalunya, lapping all but two cars on the way to their third one-two of the season. The Finn finished first.

In their wake, only Ferrari's Michael Schumacher produced an even halfway-convincing performance to take third place, sustaining hopes that he might yet turn this apparently unstoppable tide in the second half of the season.

It was a race in which the also-rans had to be scrutinised in order to find much in the way of creative tactics or promising driving. Such is the dominance of the McLarens that neither Hakkinen nor Coulthard seemed to be working particularly hard.

In Hakkinen's case that illusion was almost valid. "The car was terrific," he enthused. "Nothing is ever quite perfect, but I had no problems whatsoever." For Coulthard, hoping to emulate his victory at Imola, the race was slightly less convincing. Throughout qualifying he had not felt confident with his car's handling, even spinning into a gravel trap during Saturday's practice session. He duly qualified second alongside Hakkinen on the starting grid, but dropped away steadily from the start and never looked like challenging for the lead.

"My first set of tyres were not so good," said Coulthard, "and I had made changes to the chassis set-up both after the morning warm-up and then again just before the start.

"The car's front end felt a little `pointy' from the start, but its handling got progressively better throughout the race and was at its best on the last set of tyres."

For the McLaren management it was a great relief that there was no repeat of the unexpected gearbox failure that eliminated Hakkinen from the San Marino Grand Prix two weeks ago. The problem was revealed to have been caused by a counterfeit bearing which had somehow found its way into the McLaren supply chain earlier in the year.

Schumacher did everything that could have been expected of him in finishing third, even though he got too much wheelspin at the start and dropped to fifth place by the end of the opening lap. That allowed his team-mate Eddie Irvine to take a third place ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella's Benetton, but after his first refuelling stop Irvine, under team orders, slowed his pace by three seconds in one lap, thereby allowing Schumacher to emerge from his first refuelling stop in third place.

Fisichella, who now found himself back in fifth place, then attempted to overtake Irvine round the outside of the first corner at the start of lap 29, the two cars colliding and spinning into retirement in the gravel trap.

Fisichella remonstrated vigorously with Irvine as the two men walked away from their abandoned cars, but the stewards eventually decided that the fault lay with the Italian, who was fined £4,600 for "causing an avoidable accident".

Irvine was characteristically direct: "He just came down the outside and turned into me, taking the racing line despite the fact I was there. What did he expect me to do? Press a button and go into helicopter mode?"

This incident allowed Schumacher a clear run through to third place, despite a 10-second stop-go penalty, imposed for speeding in the pit lane. Fourth place fell to Alexander Wurz's Benetton with Rubens Barrichello having a fine race to bring the Stewart-Ford home fifth ahead of Jacques Villeneuve's Williams and Johnny Herbert's Sauber, thus scoring the team's first points of the season.

Villeneuve, who won last season's race commandingly en route to the world title, battled with oversteer for virtually the entire weekend and rounded off his disappointing 10th place in qualifying with an accident which took a corner off his Williams FW20. Williams plan to fight back in time for next month's Canadian Grand Prix with a heavily revised car which they believe will revive their fortunes to the point where they can challenge Ferrari to be "best of the rest".

For their former team leader Damon Hill, out of luck again when his uncompetitive Jordan suffered an engine failure, even a single championship point looks like a dream.

This time, he asserted, it was personal. Hill, replaced by HeinzHarald Frentzen at Williams last year, accused the German of driving him off the course then characterised him as "a brick short of a full load," adding: "He came out of the pits then pushed me wide at turn three deliberately and put me in the gravel. It's mindless, just stupid."