Juan Pablo Montoya has issued a challenge to his new teammate, Kimi Raikkonen.
Montoya moved in the off season from Williams, joining the Finn at McLaren.
”I had hard races with Kimi when I was in the Williams and he was in the McLaren, so you are going to be seeing the same thing when we are both in McLarens,” Montoya said at a Tuesday news conference.
”I’m going to be trying my best to try to beat him, and he’s going to be trying his best to try to beat me.”
Montoya acknowledged that Raikkonen will have the initial edge when the season opens on March 9 in Melbourne, Australia.
”I’m not really expecting to go straight into the first year of races and say I’ll be quicker than Kimi,” Montoya said. ”It’s very hard to do it like that.
”For me it’s new engineers, new mechanics, new car and new everything. It’s going to be a lot harder.” — Sapa-AP