Juan-Pablo Montoya has still not forgiven Williams-BMW team-mate Ralf Schumacher for blocking him in the French Grand Prix two years ago… and plans to repay the favour very soon.
Juan-Pablo Montoya has still not forgiven Williams-BMW team-mate Ralf Schumacher for blocking him in the French Grand Prix two years ago… and plans to repay the favour very soon.
At the time, Schumacher was on a different race strategy (one-stop) than his Colombian team-mate (two stops). But when Montoya hauled in this team-mate’s car, which was fuelled up and on worn sets of tyres, Ralf was unwilling to let the Colombian – who was in a faster car – take over his race position.
Montoya, who overtook Ralf in the world championship standings after the recent British Grand Prix at Silverstone, this week said he would similarly not move over for Ralf if the German was on a different strategy than him.
The relationship between Montoya and Schumacher has always been under strain, not least because the German apparently earns almost twice as much as the highly-rated Colombian. And, judging from this comment, Montoya is still annoyed that Schumacher wasn’t willing to help out his team-mate.
“Ralf didn’t listen to the team on the radio when they asked him to move over at the 2001 French Grand Prix so I’m not doing it for him,” Montoya said. “I came up behind him and was closing on Michael (Schumacher), who was ahead of us, but he wouldn’t move. He did it again at Silverstone.”
CARtody.com reported recently that team orders that effect the outcome of a race were banned and quoted Williams-BMW technical director Patrick Head as saying that the team had no intention of asking one of its drivers to support the other in the championship unless it becomes impossible for one of them to win it. “It’s not allowed,” said BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen on the subject of team orders. “The main thing is that they score as many points as possible.”
Montoya was second in the last race at Silverstone, but trails Michael Schumacher in the standings by 14 points: “I am now third in the Drivers’ Championship and this is very good,” Montoya said in the run up to this weekend’s German Grand Prix.
“But the gap from the lead is still substantial and I need to score points consistently in every race to be able to challenge for the title,” he added.