Only a year ago, inquiring minds were trying to determine why Canadians were on top everywhere you looked in big-league racing. Paul Tracy had won three in a row, Greg Moore two. Jacques Villeneuve was leading the world championship.

Was it something in the water? Our mild manners fuelling hyper-aggressiveness? The best cars?

No such questions were heard in the aftermath of Sunday's Molson Indy. Television commentator Bobby Unser's snap judgments are accepted as prevailing wisdom: Tracy needs to learn or he's on his way out, Moore has let Alex Zanardi get to him.

Unser may be fun to listen to, but he's hardly in touch. Let's consider the Canadians and their situations.

Moore has been ill, but that's not nearly as significant as his engine being off form. His father, Ric, estimated Moore was 90% going into this weekend. That's about where the Mercedes-Ilmor V-8 might rate compared to the Honda and Ford-Cosworth competition, too.

It's not just Moore who has been out of the picture since the CART schedule moved into its road-racing phase. All Mercedes-powered CART racers are just a little off the pace. And the problem isn't as simple as the faulty popoff valve that affected Moore on Sunday.

As the drivers put it, this year's Mercedes lacks grunt accelerating out of slower corners. Max Papis and Robby Gordon in the improving Toyota V-8s, ridiculed a year ago as underpowered, now are very close to matching Moore and Mauricio Gugelmin in trap speeds.

In Toronto's final qualifying, Honda-powered Tony Kanaan was fastest at the start-finish radar gun, at 169.266 miles per hour. The slowest of the fastest 15 cars was Honda-powered Gil de Ferran, 164.449. No Mercedes pilot made the list.

In the coming race at Michigan Speedway, however, Moore and Mercedes may well be able to compete with Zanardi again. The Mercedes may be strongest at constant high rpm, and its compact dimensions may allow more room for airflow within the car, particularly in the Penskes, creating more downforce.

But with six of the remaining seven races following Michigan on road or street circuits, England's Ilmor Engineering, creator of the Mercedes-badged engines, surely is searching for more torque within its tiny jewel of a V-8.

And Tracy? His inability to find a way around stalled teammate Dario Franchitti, after four others had succeeded, prompted laughter among those who've concluded Tracy always will be a crash waiting to happen.

Zanardi, though, credited team owner Chip Ganassi for informing him over the two-way radio of which way to go at the yellow, whereas Barry Green, working with Tracy, didn't know. Assigning blame in such foulups is difficult.

Tracy already had been characterized as CART's village idiot, after grazing the wall in practice and blocking Michael Andretti in Friday's qualifying. Blocking and grazing the wall are commonplace, but Tracy's reputation works against him.

But Tracy also moved to sixth from 10th on the first lap, and was driving within his Reynard's capability until he came upon the stricken Franchitti.

Tracy's own view of the year is that he underestimated how long it would take to come to grips with a new car and a new team.

"We have been competitive at times, we just haven't been able to carry it through," he said before the Molson Indy.

"I think this is a building year for Team Kool Green. It's a new team in that it's never been in a two-car situation."

Franchitti is consistently faster than Tracy. But their circumstances aren't as similar as they appear. The Scot benefits from having driven a Reynard last year, and his engineer, Don Halliday, worked with a driver with similar setup tastes, Andre Ribeiro. Tracy had never raced a Reynard, and his engineer, John Dick, worked last year with Parker Johnstone, a polar opposite to Tracy.

"We're getting better and better, we're probably 75% of the way there," Tracy said.