Montoya Frustrated with Sauber . . . Again

A frustrated Montoya
By Jamie Makin (24/3/2004)
March 25 2004

For the second time in the last five races, Williams BMW driver Juan Pablo Montoya has criticised a Sauber driver for holding him up.

The first incident occured in Monza last year when Montoya was still in close contention for the drivers championship. It took Heinz-Harald Frentzen in the Sauber the better part of a lap to heed the blue flags and let Montoya by. Frentzen's explanation was he had oil on his mirrors and had confused Montoya's Williams for Mark Webbers Jaguar, with whom he was engaged in a battle for position. When the team explained the situation to him over the radio, he quickly cooperated in letting Montoya through.

Montoya, of course, had a different take on things as he saw his championship hopes slipping away from him. He lost a lot of ground on Michael Schumacher in that one lap, and then slowed his pace to conserve the car and settle for second.

Last weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix furthered Montoya's frustrations. Getting by the inexperienced backmarkers in the field was a widespread complaint in the paddock Sunday evening, but Montoya was especially upset with Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello and Sauber's Felipe Massa. After losing a lot of time behind them both once again, Montoya opted to play it safe and settle for another second place. "It's a bit of a shame, the blue Ferrari," complained Montoya. Barrichello later said he slowed down because he was stuck behind a Minardi, while Sauber has not commented on Massa's actions.

So, why has Montoya been so frustrated with Sauber when clearly others have held him up as well? He most likely sees Ferrari as William's biggest threat for this year's championship. Could all of the talk about Sauber being Ferrari's "junior team" cause Montoya to take his frustrations out on them as well?

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