Exclusive interview with Juan Pablo Montoya: Max Verstappen is doing everything right in Championship fight, Oscar Piastri was a shocker all weekend in Austin & the situation with Red Bull employee and Lando Norris was ‘mental’
Speaking to Joe Fortune, former McLaren and Williams driver Juan Pablo Montoya has spoken about how Oscar Piastri will fare in upcoming races after seeing his Championship lead cut once again in the US Grand Prix.
He also covered Red Bull’s change of fortunes in the F1 Drivers’ Championship as wellRed Bull’s interference with Lando Norris in the pit lane last weekend, for which they have been fined, and what it may mean for the Championship.
Montoya previewed the Mexico City Grand Prix in full as part of the wide ranging interview, giving his views on
Since the summer break Max Verstappen has had three wins and two seconds, and he’s just had the most dominant weekend in Texas. What more can we say about him? Is he the world champion in waiting? Is he favourite now?
No, I don’t think he’s favourite. He has an outside chance. But we have got five more races and two more sprint races, and anything can happen. The number of points on the table are still substantial.
Since the summer he’s made up 63 points in five races. And he’s now only 40 points behind. It’s absolutely crazy.
Max is bringing the goods home every week. He’s putting the laps in in qualifying. He’s not making track limits. He’s not making mistakes. He’s getting the starts he needs to be getting. Everything he’s doing is the right thing towards regaining the championship. You cannot rule him out.
The tough part for Max is that Lando still delivered and did a good job again. The shocker was Oscar all weekend.
What has been the trigger for Red Bull’s dramatic change of fortune?
Red Bull have found what they were missing. Everybody’s realising that when all the developments stopped on the new cars for next year, the teams started paying a lot more attention to the detail of the current cars.
Throughout the year people are expecting upgrades. All of sudden, when the upgrades stop, they start paying a lot more attention to see how they can make their current package better.
As we have seen, Mercedes is getting better, the Ferrari is getting better, the Red Bull is getting a lot better.
Red Bull have found something and in a very Max like way, he’s using it and he’s using it really well.
Do you think that because McLaren have already won the Constructors’ title, that they’ve got complacent and stopped looking at this year’s car hoping it’s still good enough?
McLaren is trying to figure out how to put more pace in the car; how to qualify better and how to be a little quicker. Earlier in the year, they had enough pace that even when they were close in qualifying, it meant they were going to drive away in the race.
If you look at Lando’s race pace in Austin, he was okay. But his qualifying pace was closer. I think McLaren have changed the philosophy a little bit. From the outside looking in, I would think that McLaren is trying to find ways to make the car more competitive in qualifying. And Lando was comfortable, and Oscar couldn’t drive it.
Is it panic stations at McLaren? What is McLaren’s mindset generally? Papaya rules again still, you know?
They’re still competitive. They have just got to execute. Look at Lando’s stop. It was just under four seconds. And it was the same right front tyre change that was the problem. The same right front as Monza, the same right front as Azerbaijan. A 2.5 second stop would have brought him out in front of Tsunoda and Lawson.
You can’t go for a championship against Red Bull and Max and have bad stops and bad strategy and a conservative strategy. You need to control your own fate.
They’re letting all the cards play a little bit and see what happens.
Do you think they’ve got a bit complacent?
It’s not complacency. It’s more that they are afraid of making mistakes. Too conservative.
That’s where Red Bull is very good. They are aggressive, they make decisions, they know they’re OK.
They’re comfortable taking a risk and I don’t think there’s any finger pointing if they take a risk and it doesn’t work out.
The Papaya rules are fine when both drivers are dominating.
But when you go back on a Monday and you sit down, and you look at the race and you look how aggressive everybody else has been, you haven’t been and you’re losing because you’re not aggressive enough then the questions are going to start coming.
At what point does McClaren panic and decide they have to put all their eggs in one basket yeah
Oscar has the lead, but Lando has the momentum. So, who do you choose?
I guarantee you both of their contracts will say that until you’re not mathematically out of the championship McLaren cannot give either man a team order to help the other car.
We are on equal rules until one of the two is out of the championship. At the moment, they both are in the race. The way it’s going, it looks more likely to go with Lando than with Oscar.
What’s happened with Oscar though? Because he was so dominant up until the summer break and now suddenly it’s all gone wrong. Is the pressure getting to him?
Earlier in the year he said, ‘I’m not changing anything, what I’m doing is great and it’s working.
I said it’s easy to say that on the outside but internally to actually commit to that is very difficult because in your mind you know that if you take that extra risk it is going to cause issues.
At some point they need to start performing better because at the moment the way it is, you know when they go to Mexico, they might be okay because they’ve got to run the high downforce, the high downwards with the altitude makes the car run like you would be running low downforce.
But when you go to Vegas, they will struggle. You just know it, Vegas is just straight lines. Vegas is a little bit like Monza you know I mean a little bit like Baku where they were not that quick, and the Red Bull was very good there.
What must be going on in Oscar’s head now?
Oh My God! You can’t imagine. Everybody says he’s the coolest character and he is, he’s very cool.
But it doesn’t matter how cool you are, the pressure such that you start questioning whether and what you’re doing is good enough. Do you need to change? What changed? Why is it not working? Why everything? Why are the qualifying laps not coming in?
Even on the weekends when he was behind, he would go to P3 and put a hell of a lap together. And now it’s not happening.
That must play with his mind terribly, because you know I can’t afford to be aggressive now, but I can’t afford to be conservative. So, what does he do?
Oscar was unbelievable at all the junior formulas and won everything. Until now everything he’s done has been good enough. But this is the F1 World Championship. This is not Formula 2. This is not Formula 3. This is it.
And when McClaren were comfortable, he knew if he got it wrong he was P2 and the problem now if he’s getting it wrong, he’s P6 or P7.
The only thing he needs to do is to avoid being out of the top three in qualifying.
What do Red Bull have to do to help Max?
At this point, the first thing I would do if I was Red Bull would be to put everything the same on Tsunoda’s car as Max has.
So, he can then be a foil for Max and get involved in stopping McLaren. The only way Red Bull have a chance at the drivers’ championship is if they can take a serious points difference from McLaren.
Two points or four points here or there is not going to be enough. So, it’d be good if Max had a teammate that can help to make McLaren’s life difficult.
So, they’ve got to bring Tsunoda up to speed so to speak and he’s doing a better and better job.
At this point with five races left, you’re doing everything right with Max. But if you can figure out how to bring the same stuff onto Tsunoda’s car, it might just be enough to make a difference.
If this continues right up to Abu Dhabi, Max and one of the two of McLaren’s are going to take each other out going for the championship and the other car is going to be champion.
Who would your money be on Max trying to take out?
Lando for sure. Oscar then benefits.
Everybody says Max has nothing to lose. But he does. They all do. Whoever shunts out of the three will be out of the championship. The only guy that can have a shunt and still have a chance realistically is Oscar.
If Max has a DNF the comeback story is done.
If he keeps the story going and if he does win, it’s got to be the greatest comeback in F1 history, isn’t it?
Yes, and the biggest upset in F1 history as well. To have a car that has dominated this much and not win the Drivers’ championship would be insane.
I still think McLaren’s going to win it. It’s great for TV and for ratings and it’s getting closer and it’s getting more exciting.
If it gets really close, Max and one of the two McLarens will have a shunt and end up crashing.
How will Max approach this? He’ll just say, ‘I’ve got nothing to lose surely? He obviously thinks he can do it.
His play is, ‘I don’t care. I want to win every race and beat them, but if I don’t, I’ve already been world champion.
And their play needs to be, well, I either beat him or I’m not world champion.
It’s going to get to a point, where someone has to make a move on someone else.
If it comes to it though, I don’t see Oscar making a move on Max in Abu Dhabi for a world championship.
The Oscar of Miami or races five, six or seven, would be a guy that would be aggressive enough to take those chances.
But the Oscar of today? I don’t see it.
Oscar needs to snap out of it. He’s fast enough that he can still win the championship, but he needs to bring the aggression level back up.
How much will Max’s experience help him in the run-in?
The guy with the championships and experiences is Max. And the guys that need to go for broke are the other two.
At this point when you get to the end of the season you need to have that approach, go for broke.
You need to win the championship.
Something that Lando did at the weekend which was really good was he made the move twice on the Leclerc. He really stepped up and got it done twice. That says a lot of where his mindset is.
If I was Oscar and even Max, I’m thinking the guy I need to worry about is Lando.
And the TV cameras showed everything. No wives or girlfriends! It shows the FIA listens!
Red Bull have been fined $50,000 for gamesmanship at Austin trying to remove tape marking Lando Norris’s grid position. What was that about and was it deserved?
As a driver, especially nowadays with the big cars, when you come to the grid, you basically always look for references to make sure you maximize your position in the box. When you get close you don’t see the line, you don’t see anything.
You might use the side, the mirror, and a mark to make sure you’re in the right place.
The whole thing with the Red Bull employee was just mental. When you get to the box, you look to the side, and you see the mark, and you know you’re in the right place.
Does that give an advantage?
It prevents you from messing up. Remember Lando got a five second penalty in Bahrain for placing his car just ahead of his grid slot. Putting tape on the wall prevents you from overshooting and being over the box. You know if you go past that mark, you’re going to get in trouble.
Was the fine justified then and what does it all mean?
It is justified. But the other thing in my opinion they should do, as they do in NASCAR which works really well, is suspend the crew person. Whoever did that should be suspended for a couple of races. At the end of the day, if that guy is a tyre changer, it means it’s going to hurt Red Bull when they do the stops.
If somebody wants to interfere like that, it should get suspended by the FI for a race or two.
A fine is nothing, $43,000 is nothing when budgets are in the hundreds of millions.
But the stir it creates is worth it for Red Bull. Absolutely worth it.
It’s about them again getting into the heads of McLaren. It is like, ‘We are here to f**k with you, and we are going to do whatever we can to ruin your day.’
Of the five remaining tracks which suit Red Bull and which McLaren?
I think Mexico is a race where I think McLaren is going to be strong. The Red Bull is going to be very strong there too.
That’s why I think if they had Tsunoda on the same stuff there as Max, it could make a difference.
Then we go to Brazil. It’s a good track. It’s a good track for McLaren. It’s a good track for Red Bull. That’s the problem! Red Bull seems like it is good everywhere now.
In Vegas, the McLaren’s not going to be that good. They’re going to be competitive, but their low aero package has too much drag and too much downforce.
What do you think the rivalry is like between the two of them in the McLaren garage?
I am sure it’s good. They do a good job. They work really well together. I think they know they need to beat each other, and they have that big competition between each other.
But I think the McLaren main thought is very clear; they don’t want to let Max win this.
What’s the rivalry between Max and Lando now? They used to be good friends, but is their fallout really genuine or is it just in the racing?
I think it’s more racing. Everybody knew that Max always had the better of Lando.
Now Lando has come out of that shell and is stepping up to Max and is feeling ok to throw the car into Max. That’s good to see.
At the end of the day, neither of them wants to crash. Because neither of them wants to give the championship to Oscar.
It’d be amazing if it’s a three-way battle going into Abu Dhabi for the championship. It’d be amazing.
And it’s going to come down to who’s aggressive enough.
I keep going back to the Yuki thing. If Red Bull are smart enough, they can run completely different strategies and cover Max. It has been one against two all the time. It would be good if Max had some help.
How important do you think Lando’s overtaking of Leclerc bd in the final reckoning? Those few extra few points could make all the difference at the end of the season, couldn’t they?
Yes. And if you’re Oscar, you’re thinking, ‘Why did I let him pass? Or why did I give those positions back?
Now the gap is 14 points. If he hadn’t passed, it would have been like 17.
From Oscar’s point of view, it’s good that they’re racing this week. You don’t have any time to think about it. When you have a two week gap, you start over looking at everything.
Now it’s good because nobody, the engineers, the drivers, nobody has time to waste.
McLaren have to be very proactive on strategy, instead of reacting to Red Bull they need to be making Red Bull react to them. I think that’ll make a difference
What about Ferrari?
Lewis is getting better. You can still see how hard the car is to drive, especially in Lewis’s hands.
But he is starting to get the hang of it. But we’re not seeing the Lewis that we know because he’s still not comfortable in the car and he knows that changes need to be made. The question is how open Ferrari is to making those changes. They have to be.
It’s a very easy sell at the end of the day. You ask yourself, what are you aiming at? Do you want to keep running the way you’re running, or do you want to win?
Because what you’re doing and what you’ve been doing the last few years, doesn’t work.
There was talk of Horner looking around the paddock and the suggestion being that Ferrari might be a good fit. Where might he go, do you think? Is there a vacancy realistically?
For me, Aston would be the perfect fit for him. I still believe that Aston would be the right fit to take a step for him. The problem of bringing him on board out of the blue is that you’re telling your current team that you don’t trust your structures.
So internally, that can create imbalances because basically what you’re telling the team is we brought somebody external because what we have is not good enough.
So, it can create some short-term turmoil. But I think if you wanted to win and you wanted to do the right thing, I think Christian would be the guy.
He’s also rumoured to have backing of over $1.5 billion to buy a team, but who’s going to sell? Haas? It’s such a valuable commodity now to have a team in F1, isn’t it?
I think has the right money Haas would sell. And I think Alpine would sell too for the right money. Those two teams are there. Especially thinking long-term Alpine at what point do you go, is it more of a business thing?
It doesn’t go in line with a manufacturer. It seems more in line of an investment.
Interlagos. What’s that track like? You’ve won there twice. What particular demands does it place on a driver?
It is amazing. It rotates the other way to most tracks. It’s left hand dominant, not right hand dominant. It’s very bumpy compared with the European tracks and most of the tracks we run at. So that makes it a little tougher and there’s a lot of up and down.
It’s one of those places where timing is everything. And it looks pretty simple but it’s really difficult. But it’s fun. For me the grip level is a little lower than most of the tracks. And by being the other way round, you’re holding the neck more the other way. All that adds up.
Talking about Brazil early next month, Bortoleto, his home race. Has he impressed you this year?
He had a rough weekend in Austin But, he’s done a really good job. Hulkenberg brought his A-game in Austin, and he had a solid weekend score points.
At this point the Brazilian fans will just be happy that he’s there. They know he’s not in a competitive car at the moment. So they’re just happy to support a local. If Audi becomes quite strong, then his following will go crazy. I think he’s very good. He’s got a lot of potential. So, it’ll be good to see how he develops.
What did you make of the Tsunoda-Bearman clash?
What was Berman doing, where was he going? Of course, Yuki is going to close the door. If you’re right on him, in which world do you think the guy’s going to get out of the way for you? And when he doesn’t move, he tries to go further in. He just got greedy. He was playing at go karts or rental cars and joking about thinking, ‘I can make it through here.’ No, he couldn’t!
A disappointing weekend for Williams. What’s happening there?
For some reason one car is happy the other one is not. Carlas had really strong pace, he was on the podium on Saturday and then on Sunday, he got a little greedy with the overtake. A bit like Bearman, he mistimed it and ran over Kimi.
The idea was good but if you look at Sainz, Sainz was close but when he went to change direction, he was a car length behind, so when he dive-bombed it was too late
Looking at next year, there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors and rumours about who’s doing what and who’s good and who’s bad and who’s not going to be. What is your reading so far of what we know?
A big outsider to become good is Aston Martin, for sure. That is what everyone is hoping for with Adrian now at the helm.
With Audi, nobody knows where they are. Red Bull might have a tough time at the beginning. You have got to say that Mercedes is going to be really strong. And I think the main, Mercedes and Ferrari, both of them are going to have good cars.
I’d be concerned about how competitive the McClaren could be. I am just not sure. This year might be the only chance McClaren has of a world champion.
What do you read into George Russell only getting a year from Mercedes along with Antonelli?
I am sure Mercedes are still keeping their options open for Max. But I’m sure George will have put something in that contract to cover that happening.
Either George will get an insane amount of money for only one year or there are reports that he has a deal that if he beats Kimi, he gets an extension for two more.
So, if he is ahead of Kimi by the summer break then he’ll have automatic implementation of the contract and then it’s Mercedes’ decision on whether they want to take Max on the other seat or not. If you’re going to take Max, they will need to kick Antonelli out. Kimi is at Toto’s mercy.
If you had to put your house on the world champion in 2025, as we stand with five races to go, with Piastra sort of imploding, Lando’s firing up and the looming threat of Max, where would your money be?
My money would be on Lando. I really do believe he has got enough of a gap over Max and I think he can cover Oscar. I’m a big Lando fan, because I do feel that he’s more complete, more mature and more experienced than Oscar.
In a few years Oscar is going to be unbelievable. And I think this season is going to be a great lesson for him.