CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Although he’s far removed from the Formula One spy scandal that rocked his former team, Juan Pablo Montoya can understand how it happened in the ultra-competitive series.
"It’s just how Formula One is," said Montoya, who spent six seasons in the globe-trotting series. "Teams are allowed to bend the rules too much. That’s just my personal opinion, but I always felt like people bent the rules and that some teams were allowed to bend the rules more than others.
"But this? This is crossing the line."
McLaren was fined US$100 million last week and expelled from this year’s constructors’ championship because the team was in possession of a 780-page dossier that revealed rival Ferrari’s technical secrets. It was later revealed through e-mail and text message exchanges that two-time world champion Fernando Alonso and test driver Pedro de la Rosa had intimate knowledge of the Ferrari setups.
Then, McLaren boss Ron Dennis said Alonso started the escalation of the scandal when he threatened to divulge compromising information to FIA after a team dispute at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Montoya wasn’t surprised to hear of Alonso’s participation, and said the champion was likely frustrated at the way Dennis was favouring teammate Lewis Hamilton. Both drivers are in their first season with McLaren, and are battling each other for the championship.
"Fernando is a nice guy, but he was the No. 1 at Renault and he was used to winning and getting everything," Montoya said. "Then he went to McLaren, and when (wife) Connie and I heard that Lewis was going to be his teammate, we said, `Oh my God.’
"We immediately felt sorry for Fernando because Lewis is Ron’s baby. Ron paid his whole career, so Ron wants him to win and not Fernando. He would rather see Lewis win, who is like his own child to Ron. Fernando is nothing to him."
Montoya said he learned in two seasons with McLaren that Dennis can be like a Jekyll and Hyde. Montoya said he charms drivers while courting them to McLaren, but the charm is replaced by intense competition once the working relationship begins.
"Ron, outside the work environment, is a great guy," Montoya said. "But he’s two different guys. The guy who I signed with and played golf with, he just didn’t exist in the office. He was just a different person, you wouldn’t even recognize him.
"He wants to control everything, and I think Fernando is (angry) about that because he is not used to someone controlling everything and did not like that Ron was like that. I think Ron is used to drivers who don’t say anything back. They are very quiet and very nice and do what everyone says, and I came along and he didn’t like that. Now I guess Fernando is the same way."
So was Alonso duped into leaving Renault after two championships to drive for McLaren?
"He thought he was going to come in and be No. 1, and he’s just not," Montoya said. "They try to make them be equal, but Lewis is genuinely a really fast driver. And apart from being really fast, he’s Ron’s favourite. It’s just the truth, and it makes it bad for Fernando."
——=
Montoya’s Q&A with Auto Racing Writer Jenna Fryer:
Q: So what did you think of the penalties against McLaren?
JPM: "I was surprised by the fine. It was a little high. But I gotta say, I was surprised that since they were taking points, they should have taken the driver points, as well. That is crazy, you know, because they took the constructor points but the drivers gained from the knowledge. So if you are going to do it, do it properly."
Q: Does the constructors’ title really mean that much? More than the driver championship?
JPM: "The constructor’s title is where the money is made. It’s the big money to the teams, because it relates to the TV money."
Q: You say this spy scandal is `just how Formula One is.’ What do you mean by that?
JPM: "Someone is always cheating. All the teams have photographers who take pictures of everything on the car. Everybody does it. Here in NASCAR, you have the car right next door to you, you can see it and everything on it. But in F1, if someone tried a new wing or something, everyone would go and take pictures of it. A million pictures of the wing at every angle and then they’d put it on the wind tunnel and go try it. Everyone copies. It’s just the way F1 works. There are so many ways for people to bend the rules."
Q: What did you think of the e-mails that implicated Alonso and de la Rosa in the scandal.
JPM: "The crazy thing about the e-mails is they aren’t really that big of a deal because you can always find out what everybody else is running. Somebody will always open their mouth. You go for dinner, and somebody will say `We are running this weight and doing that.’ So most of the time you can find out what people are running anyway. And de la Rosa was always like that. He would call people and tell them `We tried this, this and this, and this didn’t work.’ So he just sent e-mails that said, `We need to try the weight distribution of Ferrari.’ But anybody could have found out those numbers without the documents."
Q: The drivers worked with the FIA and admitted their involvement. Surprising?
JPM: "No because I guess it was going to come out a different way, and if it does, then they were going to be in trouble. If they have it and somebody is going to open their mouth, then if you don’t open your mouth first, then you get incriminated in it.’
Q: Do you consider this cheating?
JPM: "I don’t know if it’s cheating. I want to just say it’s Formula One and that’s just the way it is over there."
Q: If someone came to you with documents on a rival, would you look at them?
JPM: "To be honest with you, someone just doesn’t come and offer you the documents … "
Q: But if they did?
JPM: "Of course I would. Wouldn’t you? If someone came to you and said `Here are the documents,’ you would take them. But I guarantee that’s not the way it happened."