The story of Juan Pablo Montoya’s years in McLaren is a story full of promise but unfortunately consists of a lot of disappointment as well. The driver had joined the squad in 2005, while he was leaving the Williams team under unfriendly conditions, so he encountered certain problems first regarding the speed and steadiness. However, he did get into the groove by the second half of the year and managed to win three easy races as well as a pole. He was also in the line to win in Canada and Hungary only to be disqualified in the former and faced with mechanical failure in the latter, but he still finished the season on a positive note.
Until the year 2007, when everything revolved around McLaren’s announcement that Fernando Alonso would drive for the team in the year 2007. This was because of the fact that there were very many speculations on which current driver was going to be axed. Attempting to fight the flow, Montoya went into a complete panic mode, which was different from the reactions of Kimi Räikkönen whose cool demeanor remained constant throughout. As the season got underway, the inability of the McLaren car to perform up to standard only served to infuriate Montoya even more.
His errors began to increase early on, leading to retirements in the Australian Grand Prix and the Spanish Grand Prix. The US Grand Prix turned out to be a breaking point for him as he crashed into series of cars including that of Kimi Raikkonen and took out several other cars. This was a significant moment in time.
Within days, he declared that he was joining NASCAR and Chip Ganassi’s team even before McLaren let him go. At firs, the management viewed his exit from the team with skepticism but Ron Dennis later changed the stance and allowed him to leave.
Montoya’s engagement at McLaren serves as a painful yet sweet reminder of a motivation that never was. Although he was portrayed as one of those who could challenge Michael Schumacher, the generating of passion and fury on his part overwhelmed his talent.
