Juan Pablo Montoya: An Unfulfilled Potential

From the verge 2001 to 2006, Juan Pablo Montoya was perhaps one of the fastest men on the Formula 1 grid. Never in the 6 years of his stint at the topmost echelons of F1 racing did he finish below eighth on the driver’s standings.

For a man who stood sixth in his maiden year at Formula 1, back in 2001 when he drove for Williams-BMW and went on to gather a third-place finish in 2002, repeating the effort a year later, in 2003, was Juan Pablo Montoya, one of the finest drivers ever and also among the fiercest names missing from the list of F1 world champions?

In a single stroke of comparison the Colombian driver, who turns 43 on September 20, reduces Raikkonen and Alonso, current greats of the F1 grid into doubtable figures considering the rate at which he accomplished some feats.

In 2001, his maiden run in F1, where Juan Pablo Montoya, then as a 26-year-old finished sixth, racing stalwarts of the current era, Raikkonen and Alonso, gathered tenth and twenty-third place finish, respectively.

From the outset, Juan Pablo Montoya’s F1 career might appear rather brief, truncated given his sudden shift of focus toward NASCAR. But if you happen to delve a little deep, you’d find that even in his rather brief stint at the world’s most expensive and popular racing marquee, Montoya scaled some heights that were both telling of his mercurial talent and indicative of just all that he might have achieved had Ron Dennis been able to out-talk him into moving out to NASCAR.

From 95 race entries, Montoya finished on the podium on 30 separate occasions. If you do the math; you’d realize the feisty Colombian, reviled for his temper and admired for his speed ended up landing on the podium in every 3.3 races.

An impressive record in a brief F1 stint

In so doing, Montoya, who spent 4 years at Williams BMW and 2 at McLaren earned the admiration of fans by setting 12 fastest laps, earning 13 poles, and winning 7 Grands Prix races.

His 12 fastest laps are five shy of what Barrichello managed from 326 Grand Prix entries, three shy of Massa from 269 Grand Prix starts, and 7 more than Jenson Button who competed in Formula 1 for 17 years.

Control and extracting the best out his car were never really an issue for Montoya, who garnered a fighting second in only his fifth Grand Prix at Spain, back in 2001, after suffering the ignominy of registering four-back-to-back DNFs right at the start of his inaugural F1 season. In this very season, Montoya would earn a fantastic P2, once again at the European Grand Prix, held at the famous Nurburgring, 5 races after which, he’d win his maiden F1 victory at Monza, before finishing second at Suzuka, in the 2001 season-ending Japanese Grand Prix.

A brilliant run in F1

Having said that, one wonders just what Juan Pablo Montoya might have gathered in his opening season, had he not had 11 race-retirements that year?

In a sport where speed is tantamount to thrill and provokes collisions and often leads to ruckus, Montoya’s fiery character earned him some milestone wins at Monaco, Germany, Monza, and Interlagos, among the most noteworthy wins.

At the Principality of Monte Carlo, back in 2003, driving in his penultimate year at Williams, Montoya would win a tight contest on pure speed, despite having started third, behind pole-sitter Ralf Schumacher, his teammate, and McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen.

Implicit in that contest at the fashionable circuit was Montoya’s brilliant defensive driving from Raikkonen, who’d set the fastest time on lap 49, with the Colombian outpacing the Finn by a dainty margin of six-tenths of a second at the checkered flag.

Where’s Montoya now?

Among his other famous wins was the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix. At Senna-land, the Colombian not only set the fastest lap at a flying 1.473, began second from the race, behind pole-sitter Barrichello (Ferrari), but would beat Kimi eventually by a margin of over a second in winning his last race with Williams, moving over to McLaren for the next year. Williams would then win their next race only in 2012, their long winless drought proving the true worth of a man who might’ve been a championship material.

Apart from F1, Montoya’s proved his mettle rather well by bagging several points in nearly a decade-long stint. He’s also enjoyed reasonable success, being a two-time Indy-winner and as on date, drives for Acura in the famous WeatherTech Championship, a series birthed with the collaboration of two famous American racing car series: Rolex Sports Car series and American Le Mans series.

Written by Dev Tyagi