A second-place finish in Spain last weekend proved Juan Pablo Montoya has the cold-eyed confidence to trouble Michael Schumacher
Richard Williams
When he climbed from his broken car at Interlagos in Brazil last month, Juan Pablo Montoya displayed no outward sign of emotion. No tantrum. No tears. No march back to the pits to confront the opponent whose clumsiness had deprived him of his first Grand Prix victory. The toys, as they like to say in Formula One, stayed firmly in the pram.
And that, to some eyes, was the moment at which the Williams-BMW team’s new recruit really started to resemble a future world champion.
Mika Hakkinen’s last-lap heartbreak in Spain last weekend meant Montoya came second in the first race he actually completed, but if the sheer brio of his driving has made Montoya the current sensation of the paddock, his reaction to misfortune is equally impressive.
After Jos Verstappen, in a moment of apparent inattention, drove his Arrows into the back of the leading Williams on the 38th lap of the Brazilian Grand Prix, the 25-year-old Colombian treated the incident as though it were merely a minor inconvenience, no matter that he had been en route to a sensational win. After hustling Michael Schumacher out of the lead at the start of lap three with a cold-eyed manoeuvre that drew a subsequent tribute from the world champion to his “talent and guts”, Montoya had appeared perfectly at ease. “It showed that not only Michael can do the job,” he said. And with less than half the race to run, he seemed home and dry. Then came Verstappen’s intervention. At such moments frustration floods a driver’s nervous system with adrenalin. But Montoya’s measured response suggested an extraordinary degree of inner confidence, and as he reflected on the disappointment his words reinforced the impression of maturity. “That’s racing,” he said. “It’s the same as if there’s a technical problem with the car. If it happens, I’m not going to get out and kick the car or kick everybody in the team. I was cool. I’ve learnt to handle bad things quite well.” Had it happened to him when he had already won 10 races, he said, he would have “gone ballistic”, as he has in the past. “But at this point I’m just moving forward, learning more and trying more and getting further and further.”
When he climbed out of the car, he heard the fans cheering. “I felt really good because I knew I’d done a good job. I didn’t cock it up, I didn’t spoil it, I didn’t do anything silly.” Montoya has spent 20 years looking forward to his arrival in For- mula One. The son of a Bogota architect, he won his first kart race at the age of five. A few years later his father sold the family house to subsidise the boy’s ambition. Now, benefiting from a depth of experience that includes winning the United States Cart championship and the Indianapolis 500, both at the first attempt, he is unlikely to be disconcerted by the particular psychological pressures associated with Formula One, in which he was formerly employed as Williams’ test driver. Built like a small fighting bull and with a distinct swagger to his walk, he is not susceptible to intimidation. Sir Frank Williams’ team specialises in neglecting to discourage a degree of competitive tension between its drivers, but Montoya seems highly unlikely to join the list of those, such as Thierry Boutsen, Alex Zanardi and Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who have proved unable to cope. While he has yet to out-race Ralf Schumacher, who is now in his third season with the team, it is hard to imagine the German driver shouldering his older brother’s Ferrari aside as brusquely and conclusively as Montoya did going into the first turn in Brazil. “I think he loves a battle,” said Patrick Head, the team’s technical director. “Some people like to be on pole position and drive off into the distance, and if that happens to him I’m sure he won’t complain. But in the past the drivers that we’ve most enjoyed having in the team have been people who’ve been prepared to battle, and I think he’s like that. “When Michael Schumacher has turned up to races in the past two or three years, probably the only person he’s paid any respect to has been Mika Hakkinen, and even then reluctantly. Now at least he’ll have registered that there’s another guy out there who might give him some opposition.” Gerhard Berger, BMW’s motor sports director, praised the young man’s “fantastic car control” and his competitive spirit. In Melbourne at the beginning of March, on his Formula One debut, Montoya lined up in 11th place on the grid and had advanced steadily to fourth position by the time his engine exploded. In Malaysia he qualified sixth, but he had to start from the pit lane in his spare car and spun off in the rain on the fourth lap. In Brazil he qualified fourth as a prelude to the drive that confirmed his capacity to shake up the existing order. And all three circuits were unfamiliar to him. The race at Imola, where he again failed to finish, was his first Grand Prix on a circuit he knew, albeit only slightly. Barcelona was also a circuit he knew.
‘At the moment, on the first day of practice I’m getting used to the circuit, so I’m always a step behind. And then if you have a problem you don’t have time to catch up. Qualifying has been the hardest thing,” he said. “You get four laps, basically, and I haven’t got it right yet.”
According to Head, reliability problems have led to a small display of Latin temperament.
“Juan Pablo certainly can get a bit excited,” Head observed. “But in general he’s a pretty calm and rational character, and I think he worked out some time ago that motor racing is a bit of a roller-coaster. It doesn’t necessarily pay you back when you put in your best effort and sometimes it rewards you when you least expect or deserve it.” Montoya gave his version a few minutes later when asked how Williams and Head had changed since his days as their test driver. “They’ve been getting more tough with me,” he said, “and they panic a little bit. Actually, more than a little bit. When things are not going well, you notice it straight away. But this is what I’ve got to deal with and I will deal with it. It’s something that we’ll have to figure out.”
His natural enthusiasm and confidence are tempered at the moment by the need for realism in a team still finding its way back to the top of the grid after a period in the wilderness. What happened in Brazil and Spain certainly excited his fans back home, he said, but he wouldn’t be getting carried away with the idea of winning a race immediately. “If the car is capable of it, why not? I’ll just try as hard as I can and we’ll see what happens. But there are a lot of things still to learn and a lot of things still to think through.”