Michael Schumacher once infuriated Juan Pablo Montoya, the former McLaren star recalls.
He remains the first seven-time Formula 1 world champion: Michael Schumacher set benchmarks before Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, raising the bar for the competition.
One of his rivals on the track was Juan Pablo Montoya. The Colombian challenged “Schumi” while driving for McLaren-Mercedes and BMW-Williams. The duel at Imola in 2004 is legendary, after which he accused the Ferrari star of being “either blind or stupid.”
“He pushed me off the track, and I would have done the same,” Montoya recalled. “When they asked him in the interview what happened, he should have just said: I pushed him off the track. I would have been okay with that. But he said: I just didn’t see him,” he said, according to Sport1.
As Montoya’s subsequent “blind or stupid” remark showed, he was one of the few that Schumacher didn’t handle with kid gloves. Montoya would have liked to have more colleagues of his own caliber.
Montoya: “People thought I was crazy”
“The thing with Michael is that nobody really fought against him. When Michael was coming up from behind, everyone was just like, ‘Oh, Michael is coming!’ Everyone would get out of his way. That annoyed me. Why do that?” Montoya revealed in a Formula 1 podcast, according to Sport1.
Perhaps that’s why the Colombian drove extra hard against “Schumi,” even crashing into him in the Monaco tunnel in 2004. “My approach to racing was that I drove like a jerk,” he admitted. “People thought I was crazy, but it worked. When I positioned my car into the curve, they knew I wouldn’t back down. So they had two options: either make room or there would be an accident.”
Schumacher and Montoya partied together
But it wasn’t all fighting with Schumacher; you could also party, Montoya reveals. “The only time I spoke with Michael was when I was driving for BMW and he was still with Ferrari, and Norbert Haug invited us to a party at the Nürburgring after the race.”
That led to a lively encounter between the two rivals. “I agreed because we were staying there overnight anyway,” Montoya recounted. “I went because Norbert invited me. And then there were Michael and Rubens (Barrichello). And the three of us got drunk. That was it.”
