SILVERSTONE, England -- "It was probably one of the best races of the year for the spectators and everything if you really think about it," Juan Pablo Montoya said after the action-packed British Grand Prix. "It was so much fun for me today. I really did enjoy myself."

Montoya was grinning as he spoke. Most people were grinning after the Grand Prix because it was not only one of the best races of the year, but one of the one of the best we've seen in a long, long time.

Why? Because drivers were battling out on the track. Drivers were passing. Drivers were ducking and diving as they attacked and defended. Drivers were racing.

Just over a week after I wrote a story for ESPN.com talking about how difficult it is to overtake in Formula One, along comes a British Grand Prix that goes against all conventional F1 reasoning and theories.

What got into those F1 guys at Silverstone? Was there something in the water? Don't they know that passing isn't supposed to happen very often in grand prix races?

We went from the Canadian Grand Prix, where the top four drivers ran nose-to-tail without passing, to the European Grand Prix, where Montoya pulled off his dramatic outside pass on Michael Schumacher, to the French Grand Prix, where Ralf Schumacher led every lap. Then along comes the British Grand Prix at Silverstone where we see more passing moves than you can count.

Much of the action at Silverstone was, of course, set up by that lunatic in a kilt that ran out onto the track on lap 12. That brought out the safety car and caused three-quarters of the field to pit early. The pits looked more like a NASCAR race than an F1 race with a long line of cars heading in for servicing.

What followed in the next 48 laps was also like a NASCAR race at a place like Bristol (Tenn.) where the drivers seem to become infused with a higher level of aggressiveness. Silverstone is known to be a track where overtaking is difficult, and yet we saw battles galore.

True, much of the passing was done by the likes of eventual winner Rubens Barrichello, Montoya and Michael Schumacher, who were eighth, 13th and 15th respectively after the confusion caused by those first pit stops. But we also saw great battles for the lead, such as Barrichello attacking Kimi Raikkonen, and fights between cars that were basically equal in performance.

And then there were the wonderful potpourri battles like around about lap 23 when Ralph Firman (Jordan Ford) led Mark Webber (Jaguar Cosworth), Antonio Pizzonia (Jaguar Cosworth), Jacques Villeneuve (BAR Honda), Fernando Alonso (Renault) and Michael Schumacher (Ferrari).

	Ralf Schumacher and Co. put on a good show for the fans on Sunday.

Having the field so mixed up might have been caused by the idiot risking his life and those of the drivers and corner workers, but he shouldn't get the credit. The reason the running order was so eclectic was that the safety car had come out and almost everybody had pitted. And the safety car could have been out for any reason, such as it had been for debris on the track a few laps earlier.

It will be interesting to hear what the drivers and engineers say at the next race after they have had some time to reflect on all the battles at Silverstone.

I think that one reason why the drivers got so boisterous out there was because the early pit stops and mixed up running order and thrown every thing into such turmoil. Grand prix races are often pretty structured affairs. A driver knows he will run a predetermined number of laps and make a pit stop, and he and his team have a pretty good idea what strategy of the drivers around him are. You often hear a driver say: "Well, I was following so and so and I figured I'd wait until the pit stops and get past him then."

To me, that is not really racing. That is driving fast. Yes, it is difficult to drive a F1 car or any racing car to the limit and keep it there for lap after lap without making a mistake. And yes it's fun to watch a car go through a corner on the limit of adhesion. And yes it is something special to see a driver obliterate the competition and disappear off into the distance.

But to me, racing involves actual interaction with other drivers and cars out on the track.

Sunday at Silverstone was a lottery. Nobody was exactly sure who was doing what. Everybody seemed to suddenly wake up and get on with the job. Drivers didn't have time to wait for the strategy to play out. It was a case of "I'd better get in front of this guy as soon as possible, and I'd better keep this other car behind me whether it is a Ferrari or a Minardi."

One reason we saw so much action was due to the excellent coverage by British TV. The TV producers in some countries spend much of the time following the leader around, which gets boring pretty quickly. There are battles in other races but we often don't get to see them on TV. In this race, however, they were on top of it all and we didn't miss much of the action.

I keep lap-by-lap notes during a grand prix, and if there is a close battle I write down the car numbers involved and add an exclamation point. My notebook is covered with such notations over the 60 laps at Silverstone: Lap 16-Coulthard/Raikkonen! Lap 14-Alonso/M. Schumacher! Barrichello/R. Schumacher! Lap 20-Trulli/Barrichello/ Montoya! Villeneuve/Alonso/Schumacher! Lap 27-Villeneuve/M. Schumacher/Button! Lap 41-Barrichello/Raikkonen! Lap 47-Trulli/M. Schumacher! And so on.

The 2003 British Grand Prix was without a doubt one of the best F1 races I've seen in 20 years of covering the sport.

"That was a lot of fun!" Button said afterwards as he summed it up for all of us.

Dan Knutson covers Formula One for National Speed Sport News and ESPN.com.