Montoya overtaking

[Sodemo]

Have to say, 3 solid overtaking manoovers from Juan today.
He showed maturity with his overtaking today, a few years ago he would have charged in there feet first.
Contrast that with his impetuance at the start when he tried to outbrake Alonso, a shame really, he did exactly the same thing at Oz in 2001.
He should have finished ahead of Ralf if it wasn't for those awful pitstops.
A mixed bag from Montoya today, good show but had a "brain fade moment" at the start...

[Knowlesy]

Yeah, a missed haul of points today I think....shame really.

Watching the race again at the minute.......nearly at the end.....for a while JPM was catching Ralf and got the gap to about 4 seconds and then he fell right off the pace when they were getting amongst backmarkers. His front tyres seemed to be giving trouble, but is this a little bit of his Monza syndrome I wonder? Hope not!

[Adam43]

I think his tyres were shot. Possibly because he had that extra lap and they got cool (?).

Some good moves though. And not all at the main place to overtake.

[Don K]

Originally posted by knowlesy
Yeah, a missed haul of points today I think....shame really.

Watching the race again at the minute.......nearly at the end.....for a while JPM was catching Ralf and got the gap to about 4 seconds and then he fell right off the pace when they were getting amongst backmarkers.

That has been standard strategy for the team over the last two years.

In the past, they used to increase the distance whenever the gap (during the final stint) came below 1 second.
As FIA has said that they would punish team orders more heavily now, it's not more than normal that they are doing it in a less conspicuous way this year.

If I remember correctly, most cars in the top 6 decreased their speed during the final laps.
Michael was about to set Montoya on a lap, but instead he allowed Button to unlap himself.

[Adam43]

New season, new rules. Everyone was worried about reliability.

[alesi95]

the man can sure overtake

[Don K]

Originally posted by The Monster
Have to say, 3 solid overtaking manoovers from Juan today.
He showed maturity with his overtaking today, a few years ago he would have charged in there feet first.
Contrast that with his impetuance at the start when he tried to outbrake Alonso, a shame really, he did exactly the same thing at Oz in 2001.
He should have finished ahead of Ralf if it wasn't for those awful pitstops.

Not quite sure of that.

Montoya was faster during the first stint, but Ralf had his front wing adjusted during the first pit stop.
After that, he gradually increased his lead from 2 seconds (right after the first pit stops) to more than 10 seconds (just before he started to slow down).

Anyway, I think that Montoya did a good job.
He managed to win back half the places he lost during the first corner. Which means that he really did beat Button and Trulli, whereas the Renault were probably just as fast as the Williams today.
And it was impossible for him to make up more than those 2 places today, because of the solid performances by Alonso and Ralf.

[DavidStHubbins]

Montoya always comes up with the great moves but sadly they are mostly when he is recovering from mistakes. It's all part of the show we can expect from F1! Montoya the crazy one bouncing up and down the order... I fear next year he might be doing it from the back to midfield instead of at the front. That Macca is a dawg.

[f1atic]

Monty did make some really good passes, but as was stated, they were to recover from errors. I was quite happy to see him not take out cars in at least one instant where it looked almost certain he would. I also congratulate him on his maintaining his cool under the pressure of the first turn - it could have been disasterous.

He just didn't have the car to match the two Ferrari though. I'm not a Montoya fan, but he did a good job in the season opener.

Had it not been for Alonso backing off, followed by Rubens and Michael backing off, Monty would have been lapped - I wonder how he would have handled that and would it have taken a blue flag?

[Peter Mallett]

Yep he made some good moves. It was frust on lap two when he went for his teammate but they gave each other plenty of room.

And no sign of those "sulks" today.

[alesi95]

"And no sign of those "sulks" today."

Didn't seem to happy to be interviewed on the grid and I din't see him after the race.

I think JP is going to be Mr Grumpy all season.

[Peter Mallett]

Sorry I was talking about race commitment. I don't get English commentary so don't get interviews etc.

Nevertheless, he didn't lose it today or go "off" like France last year or Hungary the previous year so a good solid performance I think.

[Kicking-back]

Originally posted by DavidStHubbins
I fear next year he might be doing it from the back to midfield instead of at the front. That Macca is a dawg.

A bad start to this season doesn't mean they'll still have problems next year.

F1 never stands still - and teams like McLaren always bounce back to the front.

[Mr V]

Can't deny his mistake at the beginning, but i wonder how many other drivers would have pulled off all those overtakes if they were in the same position?

Both Williams drivers mentioned that they suffered from their tyres graining, and JPM suffered some bad pit stops as well. All in all a weekend for him to forget!

[Don K]

Originally posted by f1atic
Monty did make some really good passes, but as was stated, they were to recover from errors.
...
Had it not been for Alonso backing off, followed by Rubens and Michael backing off, Monty would have been lapped - I wonder how he would have handled that and would it have taken a blue flag?

As far as I know, Montoya only made an error in the first corner. And he almost completely made up for that during his first stint.

He had another set back during the first pit stop, and again he fought back very good.

I'm not exactly a Montoya fan.
But I'm sure that he would have acted very professionally if Michael would have lapped him during the last laps.
He has worked hard to get that 5th place, and he would not throw those points away for no reason.

[Sodemo]

You could see both Williams cars front tyres were badly blistered in the middle/outside of the tyre.

[Heebeegeetee]

Originally posted by alesi95
"And no sign of those "sulks" today."

Didn't seem to happy to be interviewed on the grid and I din't see him after the race.

I think JP is going to be Mr Grumpy all season.

I thought he seemed fine when interviewed on the grid, sharing a laugh with Brundle.

[Damon]

And he probably wasn't interviewed afterwards as he did only finish 5th and they had to fit in the standard British interest interviews.

[bosch!]

WAKE UP JENSON!!!! everyone could see monty coming down the inside except button. Thats the thing that frustrates about JB, however when monty is in that mood he's gonna get yer at some point.

FW is going to be ratty all year at the prospect of losing JPM and this is not going to help Raplh one little bit.

[krt917]

I don't think Jenson could do much about it, unless he had swerved across in front of him, but that isn't his style - not yet, anyway.

JPM's performance was solid. Reasonably strong moves after a mistake. At least Williams have started off in a better postion than they did last year.

[Sodemo]

Interesting article here:

http://www.planet-f1.com/Home/story_14606.shtml

and here:

http://www.itv-f1.com/media/cache/20065

Apparantly Ralf nudged Montoya when Monty passed him on lap 2 at turn 3.

[Gt_R]

Apparently, the term "teammate" is now thrown out the window when both guys know they have nothing to lose by screwing each other up.

Don't see why should Montoya expect an easy pass on Ralf. I don't really think it's Ralf's fault..he said he aint going to make it easy for Michael, so why make it easy for Montoya?

[Damon]

well when someone is already more then alongside it's generally accepted that the driver being past should yield the corner. As JPM says in the article, 4 other drivers seemed to have a good enough grasp of that.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally posted by Peter Mallett
Yep he made some good moves. It was frust on lap two when he went for his teammate but they gave each other plenty of room.

Er oops?

[Damon]

Upon closer inspection...