multi21

But he is always gracious....

TRAKCAR

He did get his head broken....

ajcjr

I love watching when his crew had a problem with the wheel last week, he was crying like a little b1tch. Hopefully Newman gets his seat. Danica should be next, wasting a good seat just because she brings money, wait till that dries up!!

ajcjr

he should have hit him harder

perfectlap

back to reality...

Montoya has a racing pedigree none in NASCAR and few in anything but F1 can match. He's the closest thing to Mario Andretti we have today. If it had four tires, he won races in it.

Remember, this is a Formula One driver that stood on the podium in every third race he started...without ever having the best car during those Ferrari dominated years. I certainly don't think we'll ever see another driver steal six consecutive pole positions (including Monaco) from a 3X's let alone 7X's F1 champion like Michael Schumacher ever again. And very few in F1 these days have the overtaking skills of a guy like "the meatball" as Kimi used to call him.

As for NASCAR, when Chip had a decent car, Montoya was finishing in the top 10 week in and week out like he'd come up on ovals and not road courses (18 top ten finishes the first year the car was Hendrick-worthy in '09). I think in the end racing for Chip in NASCAR hurt more than it helped. He should have switched to a better team after 2009.

If I'm Lotus, I'm asking JPM how quickly he can lose XX pounds. We haven't seen Montoya on a slick tires F1 car since the very last Williams Renault. Short of that I'd be on the beach too. He's done everything at this point.

CCA

Not even close to Mario. Heck, I'd take Kyle Busch, Stewart or even Jacques Villenuve over JM.

perfectlap

Probably the few who had a trailing arm break at exactly the wrong place and time.

All people involved that night at Daytona are VERY lucky to be alive given the amount of fuel involved. That accident had the potential to be up there with Tom Pryce's fatal crash at Kyalami as a freak accident resulting in horrifically gruesome deaths. Instead of track worker being split right in half he might have been scorched alive.


You know very little. And like most JPM-haters probably a Schumacher fan who didn't watch F1 pre-MS. Based on your comments above you obviously don't know that Montoya may be the only Monaco GP winner to go dirt track racing with Tony on their days off...And JPM is among the F1 drivers in Miami to gladly enter a karting event against "you me or anyone else". And he doesn't show up with a trailer and support entourage like one pro I once witnessed. Just him and hist kart against you.

p.s.
Do you as self-declared F1 expert still claim that Prost was not remotely a top 5 F1 Champion? I found that amusing... just as the makers of the recent Senna film would have as well.

perfectlap

Neither are any of those other people you mention anywhere near Mario Andretti.
The top drivers of that era were another level of skill to any we have today, no matter the series.
By the way, Mario said of Montoya in open wheel "this is the type of driver that comes along once every third generation". Evidently Mario rates him higher than you. The Schumacher vs. Montoya battle at Interlagos in 2001 was the last time the entire press room jumped out of their seats screaming. JPM was an exciting driver to watch while he was there. Too bad his temper resulted in premature exit from F1. The ironic thing is that Torro Rosso were offering him a seat after McLaren, perhaps had he swallowed his pride he would have then moved into Adrian's RedBull. If Kimi could have made a successful return to F1, and given their wheel-nut to wheel-nut racing, I'm sure JPM could have as well.


As for Kyle and Tony. Montoya was a lot closer to them in NASCAR than they would ever have been close to him in F1 or sports cars... where spinning/dumping cars without consequence from race officials is not like WWF wrestling.

CCA

Agreed. Mario is a special driver and my all time favorite.
I remember JV having some great passes and battles with Schumacher too. I thought he had a great F1 future before he got stupid and went with BAR.

multi21

Stewart is closer to Andretti than Whine Pablo. He can and has won in everything he raced. Fact remains that Ron Dennis had had enough of Montoya after he rear ended Kimi at Indianapolis and fired him. If you're "that good" you don't get fired in the middle of the season.

And yes, Prost is still outside my top 5 of all time.

gbuff

He'll get into something.....article in the local paper before the Glen race outlined how he's already lost a pile of weight by getting into cycling and, for once, seems to be dedicating himself to getting and staying in shape.

The talent is there, but he's creeping up in age, too (don't I wish I was as "old" as he is).....

Gary

hacker-pschorr

I thought you could never top some of the more absurd posts you've made in OT but this takes the cake.

I've been a Montoya fan from the start, he's been one of my all time favorite drivers since before he "made it" in Champ Car / CART. But to compare him to Mario is such a way? What a joke.

Well said.

Stewart is A flashback to a bygone era. A time when drivers just wanted to race, anytime, anywhere. As much as I love Montoya, he's in it for the paycheck more than anything. Something you could never say about Andretti, Foyt, Mears, and now Tony Stewart.

perfectlap

LOL maybe John Andretti...

1-When Smoke has won F1 races, scored 30 podiums in 94 starts, walked the Indy 500, lifted the Monaco GP trophy..then maybe you can compare him to Mario.
Basically JPM is a Le Mans victory away from the best all around racer's resume of any active driver today.

2- Ronspeak Dennis the only f1 principal to have virtually every F1 champion to bail on him for another team. Senna, Prost, Hamilton, Alonso, Kimi all told him to take his contract and stuff it.

3-FYI professore, Prost was fired twice and terminated before the end of the season like JPM... And unlike the team that fired him and went without a title for nearly 30 years, AP in short order went on to win his fourth world championship or what would have been a 5th title under the current points system. And he won those titles racing against and alongside the legends of F1. There has not been a more tested F1 champion in the modern era. Being fired by a team spending a huge budget on cars that are outperformed by smaller teams is your first clue of incompetence at the helm.

mklaskin

This time, I have to say, perfectlap makes a lot of sense. Comparing Montoya to Stewart is a stretch, any way you slice it. Stewart has also had a few blunders in his life, notably when he made his "Who needs Roger Penske?" remark in the wake of the CART/IRL split. I'm not holding it against TS, but he too has had his transgressions.

Let's not forget that Montoya jumped into CART in '99, after winning the F3000 title in '98 and won Long Beach in his rookie year. He took Franchitti to the wire that year for the championship. No small feat. He also gave the Lola-Toyota package it's first win, after many questioned Ganassi's decision to defect from Reynard and Honda. And in '99 Montoya demonstrated amazing car control at Portland when, while entering the front straight, he spun. Instead of "both feet in" he kept his left foot in and kept the spin going until he was heading the right direction.
When Montoya left F1 for NASCAR, I thought we'd lost one of the great road-racers to ovals. I think he's still got it, or can get it back, and I hope we see him back in open-wheel.

One last thing: It has long been rumored that FRG Jr. wants to sell the NASCAR team. Can't be certain, but I would not be surprised if that has something to do with it.

mklaskin

As for Mario, he raced so often for two reasons.
1. The teams' contracts would allow it.
2. He wanted to make as much money as possible.