In Montreal, David Coulthard secured his third pole position of the season, achieving the fastest time at the very end of the session.

The night before qualifying, Eddie Irvine had released a comment saying that the Canadian Grand Prix would be crucial for Ferrari, with Schumacher expressing the same opinion.

It took two attempts to get the race started as Alexander Wurz precipitated a collision, which somersaulted his Benetton above the gravel trap, into the first turn and involving Jean Alesi and Jarno Trulli as well.

After five laps, the safety car came back in and the order was, David Coulthard followed by Schumacher, Fisichella, Jacques Villeneuve, Rubens Barrichello, and Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

Mika Salo collided with Johnny Herbert who went off for the second time, and Coulthard had a transmission problem caused by a throttle linkage failure while battling Michael Schumacher for the lead.

When he got back out and yellow flags were waved to show that there was to be no overtaking, coming out of the pit lane on lap 20 Schumacher shot across to block Frentzen for turn one.

[2] As the restart Fisichella led, ahead of Villeneuve, Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill, Magnussen and Shinji Nakano.