Schumacher Delighted after Narrow Win

Ferrari's Michael Schumacher won a battle of brothers today for a Canadian Grand Prix victory that powered him to the top of the Formula One Championship for the first time this season.

With title leader Kimi Raikkonen starting from the pitlane after a nightmare in qualifying, the five times World Champion seized the moment to record his sixth win at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit.

McLaren's Raikkonen battled back to sixth place, salvaging precious points but not enough to prevent the German from powering three clear. With the season now halfway over, Schumacher has 54 points to the Finn's 51. Ferrari have 85 points to McLaren's 76.

It was the 68th win of Schumacher's career, fourth of the season and took his career points tally to 999 as he heads for his home Grand Prix at the Nurburgring in two weeks' time. But it was no runaway victory with the first four cars separated by a mere 4.481 seconds at the finish.

"It was a very tricky and tight race," said Schumacher, who ran behind the Williams of younger brother Ralf from the second lap until the initial pitstops and then had him in his mirrors for the rest of the afternoon.

"There was a time when I thought I was going to pass Ralf, but then his tyres seemed to improve and I could not get by. But the mechanics did a great job in the pit stop to put me in the lead.

"Of course, it is important to be leading the Championship in what I have always said will be a hard season with a tough fight to the end. As for having 999 points, in Germany that number means you have to buy everyone a drink, so we will see what happens tonight."

Brazilian Rubens Barrichello was fifth, fighting back from 18th place after three laps when he pitted to replace a damaged front wing on his Ferrari.

"My race was conditioned by what happened at the start," he said. "We were all very close and, with Webber on the outside of me, I touched Alonso under braking and damaged the front wing. As I had to stop to change it, we changed the strategy.

"Then, during the race, I had problems with the brakes and also the gearbox electronics. On top of that, after I lost the left turning vane the car was no longer perfectly balanced. Despite all that, I was able to control Raikkonen when he closed up, thus managing to finish fifth.

"All in all, I can be happy with the final result as I was fifth on the grid, but virtually last after two laps."