NewBettingSites Exclusive interview with Juan Pablo Montoya

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Exclusive interview with Juan Pablo Montoya: George Russell would’ve won Silverstone if it was red flag, Ferrari can compete if Mercedes keeps having reliability issues and Verstappen is running out of options - he should stay at Red Bull

Speaking exclusively to NewBettingSites, seven-time Grand Prix winner Juan Pablo Montoya has reacted to the British Grand Prix, and claims George Russell would have won at Silverstone if there had been a two-lap shootout after Nico Hulkenberg’s retirement.

The Colombian has warned Toto Wolff and Mercedes that they need to sort out their issues with reliability if they don’t want Ferrari to catch them in the championship.

Montoya also believes Max Verstappen, who was publicly very frustrated with the Red Bull car’s malfunction, is ‘running out of options’ and may need to stay in his current team for next season.

Read the full interview below:

Silverstone was a fabulous weekend, though perhaps ruined by the safety car on the last lap?

Was it really ruined? There would not have been a different winner. George was P2, and his luck is turning after his bad luck earlier in the season. Lewis would not have won the race.

Was Silverstone the best race of the season?

I thought it was really, really good. It was a very cool race.

The sprint race was crazy, full of energy with people trying different modes.

Then on Sunday it was the calmest race ever. It was hard to pass; everybody was kind of more in sync.

Do you not think that the end was just such an anti-climax?

It could have been. But you can't judge the whole race on what happened with the safety car.

In my career, how many races in IndyCar and NASCAR finished under caution? It was kind of normal. So, when you see a lot of finish like that, it is not a big deal.

In hindsight, what they should have done was go red flag.

Then it would have been really interesting, because then everybody's on fresh tyres.

And then you do a standing start with fresh tyres with a one or two-lap shootout.

That would have been fabulous. Can you imagine how cool that would be?

Who would have won that then, in your opinion?

I wouldn't surprise me if George could have taken it then. Because then George is on new tyres as well. And maybe Lewis.

The problem was that they had to go by the rules.

The race director was maybe two seconds too late making the call.

I think he was waiting for the back of the pack to clear the incident to wave them around and by then the leader had just crossed the line.

Do you think there will be an FIA investigation?

I think it will be a lesson learned. The rule is very simple.

What did you make of Charles Leclerc's performance?

I think it was really good to see Charles perform. He finally clicked. All drivers spend hours and hours looking at things, trying to understand how to do it better. Charles finally understood what he needed to do.

And when you beat somebody like Lewis in his home race, especially with the form that Lewis has been bringing lately, it's a huge statement.

What exactly is Charles doing differently?

He’s figured out what his issues were and what the car was doing wrong. For instance, when you're turning and it's not giving you the right sensation, is it the ride height? There are so many things that can be wrong, so many issues that have an impact.

And when one of those things is out of phase, it can create a ton of different problems and create a witch hunt trying to sort it out.

Sometimes the solution is very simple and it's very cool. Because I was really worried in the last couple races that Charles was too focussed on what Lewis was doing. And when you’re focussed on Lewis is it very hard to beat him as he has the advantage.

It is the same story with George. Kimi is very comfortable and George is not. I wonder if George is trying to understand how Kimi is doing it rather than how the car can do it for George himself.

What will this do for Charles’s mood and confidence?

Everything. He finally showed why Ferrari think so highly of him and why they signed him again.

If you're Mercedes, you're thinking you should have won the race with Kimi. They had more than enough pace to win the race.

But with Ferrari now breathing down their neck at what stage do they bring a serious upgrade package.

I was talking to Mercedes in Austria, and they said they would keep bringing small things.

Toto has said they have more in the pipeline but don’t feel the time is right to bring them yet.

But at what point do you realise that you can’t give Ferrari too much confidence and you have to press ‘Go.’

The one issue for Mercedes seems to be reliability. Would you agree?

Yes. And this will become a problem, if not now by the end of the season.

That’s why I think it is really important to bring the upgrades and keep winning races. So, by the time they might incur penalties for new ICE units or batteries, they will be far enough ahead that it won’t matter.

Kimi has lost almost 50 points in the last three races.

People might think it will knock his confidence, but it won’t. In fact, it will be a positive for him. It will mean he is under pressure but that will make him execute better and he won’t relax.

If you are winning all the time as he was, and the gap between him and the rest of the field gets too big, there is a danger you can get complacent and too comfortable.

Kimi has had issues, but none of them are down to him.

What is incredible about this kid, is it doesn't matter where you take him, he is the fastest.

This is new territory for Kimi, because in every junior Formula you rarely have mechanical issues. You get one now and again but not like he’s had, three weeks in a row!

It's a new experience for him. Mentally he knows he should have won the race. I think Mercedes should ask for a review of the track limit penalties.

If you go wide and you're not racing anybody, where is the advantage?

Three races ago, George was looking fed up with life. Now he is really closing the gap. What’s changed?

I think the problem this season is that most of the guys on the grid were so used to really high downforce and were comfortable with the ultimate grip they had.

Now the cars are very lively. They don’t stick to the ground as they used to.

They move around a lot more and are spinning off. All kinds of things are happening.

So now you get into a zone where drivers are wondering what the hell is going on. Drivers have been asking themselves why their car turned here and didn’t turn there. Then they start thinking about it. Now he is coming to terms with things as well as benefiting from Kimi’s mechanical issues.

Do you still see the title race between the Mercedes drivers, or could Ferrari get involved?

Ferrari could get involved if Mercedes do not sort out their reliability problems and improve.

It's funny because it wasn't an engine problem for them this week. They figured out the reliability on the engine side, and it was something completely random. But what people forget is these are experimental cars.

These are cars that you're taking to the limit everything is designed to be on the limit, to make it as fast as possible, as light as possible, as strong as possible.

The problem now is that drivers have become so used to reliable cars. When they’re not it’s a huge drama.

Looking back in my day, we used to DNF six, seven, eight times a season. That was normal.

If the engine blew up there was never a serious inquest. We used to go, ‘Oh that’s shame!’

You'd rather have a ton of power and blow up a few races and have a shot at a couple of wins than have a very reliable but slow engine.

It was kind of the nature of the beats.

Nowadays reliability is so much higher that when something fails, it's a huge bump.

Max Verstappen was really unhappy at the end of the race, complaining about the car, saying it was just not good enough. His mood swings from week to week. What do you read into his state of mind?

I understand why he is being so hard with everyone. He has been so used to winning races so often. Red Bull have dominated the last few years and he’s won four championships. He's done an incredible job and now under the new rules, he’s facing a reality check

The cool thing with Max is he's always pushing. Whether it's a competitive car or not, he’s always pushing and it's really good to see.

I feel bad that the two incidents with the rear wing have been on his car. When the rear wing doesn’t close properly you lose a lot of down force, and you spin off the track. Once you can understand but twice, that becomes dangerous as Max said.

You know the hard thing is you have to go onto TV after something like that. You can’t expect a good reaction!

Max wants it bad.

He wants everybody to behave the same way; he wants everybody to push 110 % as he pushes himself and he drives the team forward.

Max is a guy who just doesn’t make mistakes,

It's unbelievable that he really doesn't mess up ever. When you have somebody that's good and not messing up but the team is messing up, that puts a ton of pressure on the team, especially with the rumours that he might be leaving if things don’t improve and he is not happy.

Where do you think his mind might be about staying or going?

There’s talk of a straight swap with Piastri and McLaren. Aston Martin has been mentioned. But if you were Max, would you really risk that?

If you have a car that can get you onto the podium and is the second or third best car, why would you go to a team where the car won’t even make the top 10?

Probably the only real chance for him to try something different is with McLaren. But right now, you have got to say the Red Bull is better than the McLaren. And would he go to McLaren and have Lando as a teammate? It would not be a speed thing. Max is incredibly fast, but to a point McLaren has been built around Lando.

There is no seat available at Ferrari, nor realistically at Mercedes.

So, can you see Max thinking ‘actually, I'm in the best place I can be in the situation?’

Yes. It's a place that he knows, where everything is built around him. He's just p*ssed off that things are not working.

If you're driving along, and the wing doesn't close again, and you go off. You can see his levels of frustration.

What is interesting is to look at how Max and Kimi react when things go wrong.

Antonelli lost a lot more than Max at Silverstone, but he was completely cool with the problem. Max, not so much.

How impressed are you with Antonelli for a 19-year-old?

He is in a very good place. When you're winning races, it's much easier to have a good reaction if things occasionally go wrong.

If it keeps happening, and we see complaining Toto will jump on the radio again and say we'll talk about it off the radio.

That's the difference. In Mercedes, the culture is, we don’t wash our dirty linen in public.

That's the big difference. I think Max is just trying to put pressure on Red Bull to perform. It's his way of saying, ‘Come on guys, let's go.’

I don't think he means anything in a bad way. He’s just trying to push Red Bull to do better.

Jos was seen speaking to Mekies after the race. What do you think that conversation was about?

He would be asking, ‘what are you guys going to do about things? This is not acceptable.

‘What the hell you need to do better. If you want us to stay here, we can't accept any of this.’

I think Max would be better to stay where he is. And he’s running out of options really.

Red Bull have made insane progress this season.

They built a heavy car and supposedly the car is on weight now. You look at Williams, it was heavy as well and Williams is still heavy.

It shows how quickly Red Bull can and do react to things.

What they do is a great lesson for a team like Williams regarding the pace they need to work at.

I think they're doing a really good job. Williams are going in the right direction. But if you need to compete against Red Bulls and the Mercedes and Ferraris, you need to be able to react much more quickly.

What is the main issue for Williams?

I think their problem is that they keep outing things off. If you keep saying we’ll sort things out next year, you won’t teach the people in the team how to go through the process of making a car better and the attention to detail you need. They’ve constantly got to be asking themselves, ‘How can we make it better?’

You can't build a rubbish car and go, ‘I'm going to wait for next year.’

At some point you need to take that piece of rubbish and make it competitive, and the team must learn to understand how to do that.

Last year Red Bull kept developing the car right to the end of the season.

James Vowles is an amazing man but is he too nice? At some point you need to be able to grab people by the balls.

Talking of Red Bull, Christian Horner was back in F1 at the weekend. He was feted by the FIA. And he and Newey hugged on the starting grid. What do you read into that and what do you think he is going to do?

Embracing Adrian was a real sign for me. I’ll have to text him and find out! I am good friends with him.

Christian is a great racer.

He created that Red Bull culture. You might not like him, you might like him, and his personal life apart, what he's done and the culture he created is insane.

It's not a mellow culture. He wants the best. Christian is like Max. He doesn't give a f**k about anything. He just wants to win.

Some people in F1 are too kind. Sometimes you have to be an ar*ehole to get people moving.

Would F1 be better for having Christian back?

It would be so cool to have Christian back. Wherever he goes, I bet you he can flip the thing around.

It's a little bit like Flavio. Whether you like him or not, look where Alpine were two years ago, and look where they are now. They were a team that was on the back of the grid every race and now they're scoring points every week.

Is Aston Martin the right place for him given that he would only come back if he had complete control?

That is likely. But there’d be others too who’d want him.

If I was Cadillac, he would be the perfect guy for their experiment. But there are personal reasons why he wouldn’t go there.

What else is floating around the grid?

The big question for me is what Toto said about budgets.

He thinks everybody's going to run out of budget and are going to have to stop developing the cars at some point.

He thinks everybody went too fast too early because they want to be instantly competitive instead of spending more time developing and coming up with better parts.

And he thinks Mercedes is going to have such a big package that when it comes, they're going to blow away the competition again.

Toto wonders how teams can keep brining upgrades. He says looking at their own budgets, it cannot work. It doesn’t add up. And they are going to run out of money.

Finally, who will be world champion this year?

Kimi Antonelli. I don’t think anyone can touch him. He is going to be world champion for the next three years.