Montoya: I feel sorry for Alonso

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By Jonathan Noble Friday, September 21st 2007, 06:28 GMT


Former McLaren driver Juan Pablo Montoya has revealed he felt 'sorry' for Fernando Alonso the moment he found out that Lewis Hamilton was going to be his teammate.

As the extent of the troubled relationship between Alonso and team boss Ron Dennis was made public this week in transcripts of the recent FIA spy hearing, Montoya has said he is not surprised that Alonso's time at McLaren has not worked out.

In an interview with news agency the Associated Press, Montoya said: "Fernando is a nice guy, but he was the No. 1 at Renault and he was used to winning and getting everything.

"Then he went to McLaren, and when (wife) Connie and I heard that Lewis was going to be his teammate, we said 'Oh my God.'

"We immediately felt sorry for Fernando because Lewis is Ron's baby. Ron paid his whole career, so Ron wants him to win and not Fernando. He would rather see Lewis win, who is like his own child to Ron. Fernando is nothing to him."

Montoya says there are similarities between the way that his and Alonso's relationship with Dennis panned out. And he thinks it is mostly to do with the way that Dennis likes to keep control over all aspects of the team.

"Ron, outside the work environment, is a great guy," Montoya said. "But he's two different guys. The guy who I signed with and played golf with, he just didn't exist in the office. He was just a different person, you wouldn't even recognize him.

"He wants to control everything, and I think Fernando is (angry) about that because he is not used to someone controlling everything and did not like that Ron was like that. I think Ron is used to drivers who don't say anything back.

"They are very quiet and very nice and do what everyone says, and I came along and he didn't like that. Now I guess Fernando is the same way."

When asked whether or not he believed Alonso was lured to McLaren expecting things to be different, Montoya said: "He thought he was going to come in and be No. 1, and he's just not.

"They try to make them be equal, but Lewis is genuinely a really fast driver. And apart from being really fast, he's Ron's favourite. It's just the truth, and it makes it bad for Fernando."

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Montoya not surprised by spy scandal

By Jonathan Noble Friday, September 21st 2007, 06:40 GMT


Juan Pablo Montoya says he is not surprised that Formula One has become embroiled in a major spy scandal, because he thinks everyone has been pushing the rules to the limits in recent years.

The now NASCAR driver, who drove for McLaren in 2005 and 2006, thinks there is nothing out of the ordinary in what McLaren did.

"It's just how Formula One is," said Montoya in an interview with the Associated Press.

"Teams are allowed to bend the rules too much. That's just my personal opinion, but I always felt like people bent the rules and that some teams were allowed to bend the rules more than others. But this? This is crossing the line."

He added: "Someone is always cheating. All the teams have photographers who take pictures of everything on the car. Everybody does it. Here in NASCAR, you have the car right next door to you, you can see it and everything on it.

"But in F1, if someone tried a new wing or something, everyone would go and take pictures of it. A million pictures of the wing at every angle and then they'd put it on the wind tunnel and go try it.

"Everyone copies. It's just the way F1 works. There are so many ways for people to bend the rules."

Despite his feelings about what happened, Montoya does not actually believe that the emails between Fernando Alonso and Pedro de la Rosa that were central to the case were that unusual.

"The crazy thing about the e-mails is they aren't really that big of a deal because you can always find out what everybody else is running," he said. "Somebody will always open their mouth.

"You go for dinner, and somebody will say 'We are running this weight and doing that.' So most of the time you can find out what people are running anyway. And de la Rosa was always like that.

"He would call people and tell them 'We tried this, this and this, and this didn't work.' So he just sent e-mails that said 'We need to try the weight distribution of Ferrari.' But anybody could have found out those numbers without the documents."

When asked about his reaction to the penalties that were handed down against McLaren, Montoya said: "I was surprised by the fine. It was a little high.

"But I gotta say, I was surprised that since they were taking points, they should have taken the driver points, as well. That is crazy, you know, because they took the constructor points but the drivers gained from the knowledge. So if you are going to do it, do it properly."

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Dennis: no regrets over driver equality

By Pablo Elizalde Wednesday, September 19th 2007, 10:46 GMT


McLaren team boss Ron Dennis insists driver equality is crucial for Formula One, despite the headaches that the policy has caused him during the 2007 season.

Dennis has given equal status to both Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton this year, and their competitiveness has led to tensions between the driving pairing.

Hamilton leads Alonso by two points with just three races remaining.

Despite the problems that giving equality to his drivers has generated this year, Dennis remains convinced it is the right thing to do.

"It is something that I've always had in racing teams that I've operated because, to me, it is entirely logical to have a policy where you are striving to give each driver equal treatment - that means equality in everything," Dennis told The Times in an interview.

"It is just completely logical to try to field the two most competitive cars and be able to internally defend, in a scientific and practical way, a challenge from one driver to the team saying the team isn't fair. I think fairness is a key factor in sport.

"The easy option at the beginning of the season would have been to nominate a No 1 and a No 2.

"The problem with that is that the whole team becomes out of balance because the mentality of the people on the cars becomes 'A team, B team' and that is just not an environment which grows the team," added the Briton.

"I accept it as being the price that I pay for being able to say to Fernando and Lewis, 'Race on the circuit and don't try to pressure me off the circuit.' The severity of that problem this year is certainly, for various reasons, much greater than in previous seasons."

Dennis says the problem would probably not exist if Hamilton and Alonso were not so evenly matched.

"Most times, the problem doesn't exist because one driver is normally better then the other," Dennis added.

"And how could anyone imagine that I would be in the situation I'm in, where both drivers have a very similar work ethic and a very similar approach to how they race and how they optimise their cars?

"There is an inevitability that they are going to look at each other and have a view which they express to me."