Montoya says NASCAR would challenge Schumi

ah NASCAR is just boring as hell.Montoya is definately f*cked up in the head to quite formula 1 for nascar.what an idiot.

 

You got it a bit wrong there. F1 has always been behind the US forms of racing safety wise until recently. Untill Senna's accident, F1 had just been lucky. Anyone that rememebers those low cockpit sides with the driver's heads sticking out can attest to that. Oval racing is more dangerous that road racing because of the sustained high speeds, it's simple, a faster speed at the wrong angle will cause more damage to the body. The US medical staff was always amazing. If Zanardi had the same sort of accident in F1 he would not have made it. The Champcar safety team was to him in seconds. How long did it take the safety team to get to Senna in 94?

As far as MS and NASCAR and all that, most people in the US could give a flying frick as to who MS is. That's why he can vacation here and not be bothered. Montoya's fan base is only going to grow. US and NASCAR fans in general appreciate real racers with balls not "strokers" who have the best car and run from the field as they say. Montoya was one of if not the best racer in F1 and he will fit right in at NASCAR. MS should try it before he knocks it, he would probably have a very hard time trying to learn, it's totally different than F1. If he doesn't like it cool, that's his right but he should probably keep his mouth shut about it.

 

MS beat every teammate because they were either past thier prime or were never that good to begin with. As a matter of fact MS didn't even want Nicola Larini as his teammate when he got to Ferrari because he thought the mechanics would favor an italian driver over him. He would never allow a driver anywhere near as good as him in an equal car. JPM had Ralf as a teammate then Kimi, a man that MS did not want as his teammate under any circumstances. JPM has 7 wins in 5 and a half years in F1. Some highly respected drivers don't even have that many in thier whole careers.....

 

How many world championships does Mikey S have? How many times did JPM beat Kimi, not too many. JP had a good car, it doesnt take much a lot of skill to win in a good car, ie. Rubens and Ralf.. In 2005, Kimi had 112 points to JPM's 60.

 

Ahhh but we forget, JPM was right in the title fight in 03 with Williams. A questionable penalty and the car letting him down took him out of the fight. JPM had stepped in to a team and a car that was designed around Kimi and JPM took some time to get used to the team and the car, which he never really did get used to. Kimi had way more points in 05, but JPM was out for two races. It takes skill to keep Kimi behind him in Brazil and to pass Alonso at Silverstone, good car or not. Michael never had to fight that stong a teammate in an equal car. 06 was a disaster for JPM but the problems that the McLaren had were never corrected, Kimi adapted to it while JPM just drove reactivly like he always did with bad results. If he had taken some time to study what Kimi was doing he would have been ok but he never did. Pity

 

You may want to take another look at NASCAR demographics. You're a bit off in your perception here.

C.

 

Is it possible for states to make super car to match ferrari, bimbo, lambo or whatever at there price level? Z06 is pretty good at 60g.

 

MS record speaks for it self.

 

MS beat all his teammates because he was the best driver in F1 from the mid-nineties onwards; his records speak for itself. That fact that he was able to allegedly influence who his teammates were only shows me how much respect
he received. I'm sorry, how many other 7-time WDC have there been?

Even if you never saw an F1 race and had no idea who these guys were, watch Schumey's last drive in the Brazilian GP and tell me he wasn't special.

As for JPM in 2005 JPM was schooled by KR. The writing was on the wall back then; he'll be a footnote in F1 history...

 

^People do tend to get irrationally huffy about his vetoeing potential threats to his number 1 status. Let's see, who else could be guilty of this... Prost, Senna, and Piquet for starters.

I don't recall Mansell every preventing a teammate from joining, most likely because he didn't have the pull to do so as he did split when Williams hired Prost back instead of having his number 1 status challenged. He would have vetoed Prost if he could.

So, in the past 2 decades all notable drivers, excluding maybe Hakkinen (who really never had any threats anyway), have blatantly influenced their teams driver lineup, and yet somehow Schumacher is "the only one" in many (ill-informed) people's opinion.

 

What a crock. Get your facts together before you make stupid comments.




Darrell.

 

I was in Indy during the first USGP there and I specifically recall a statement such as that allegedly made my MS being printed in the Indy newspaper...

 

First of all, no one said MS wasn't special. He was the greatest driver of his era. That being said, many of his tactics on track and demands of the team were questionable. MS espcially at Ferrari let no one even remotely a threat to him in the other car. He even vetoed Larini because he was italian. Prost, for one had Mansell and Senna as teammates at one point. Mansell had Piquet as well as Prost. There could be no doubt of how good prost was because of the comp that he had as his teammates. These questions about MS wouldn't even exsist if he ever had a strong teammate. Everyone wanted to see MS and Kimi at Ferrari. Didn't happen, no great surprise. Top drivers on tops teams with number one status being decided by the drivers not by a contract. That's what i'm talking about.

Kimi and JPM are two different types of drivers. The McLaren suited Kimi better or Kimi adapted to it better. Does it make JPM a bad driver? No, but he did need to change his style nad work harder but he never did.

 

Prost, Senna, Piquet were multiple WDC; Mansell won it once and there is no doubt in my mind that if he had won more WDC he would have naturally had more pull; its the nature of the business-just as there is a reason the best drivers get the best cars....

I can't wait for the season to start.....

 

Mansell did want to drive with Prost because they had already driven together at Ferrari and Alain beat him. Can't really blame him. Prost didn't seem to care who his teammate was, and Senna vetoed Derek Warwick because at the time He felt that the Lotus team didn't have the resources to run two top drivers. He obviously wasn't scared of fighting a strong teammate either because he later went to McLaren in 88 and drove with Prost. MS was the on;y one to vetoe teammates becuase they were too fast and a possible threat to his number one status. That's why he gets mentioned all the time. Ferrari wanted Mika at one point but someone said no. Gee i wonder why. It sure wasn't team resources..

 

Say what you want about Montoya, but unlike MS, he has raced successfully in a wide variety of venues and, therefore, can speak with more authority about the nuances, challenges, etc. of the various venues.

I recall Schumacher being quoted in Autoweek (I berlieve) about racing at LeMans and he said he thought it was too dangerous. This really surprised me. I thought all top racers would be totally fearless.

Dave

 

At least JPM had the guts to drive alongside Kimi in equal equipment. Schumacher had the same opportunity and chose to retire instead.

It is easy to out-drive your teammate when you can handpick who that teammate is and then have them contractually obligated to drive as #2 to you.

 

+1

 

+1, look at who Mansell had as a teammate and beat Piquet and Berger. Prost had Arnoux (who back than was no slouch at Renault), Lauda, Rosberg, Senna and Mansell. Senna had no fear of anyone to take on and was quite right that Lotus didn't have the resources to provide two equal cars if Warwick came on board. He should have been a lot more worried about a Prost than a Warwick.

In addition, Bernie E has always said this was the only failing of Schumacher never having a true Number 1 next to him. The sad thing is, I think Michael would have beaten anybody in a straight fight anyway. He just didn't choose to do it.

 

i think that is all true.

 

Well thank you Peter, the shame in it is, I think although MS and Mika would have been extremely close in qualifying Michael would have had the measure of him in the races, but we will never know.

 

i read your comments closely...i think you have a very good handle on reality while showing little emotion. schummy is the clear emotional favorite on this board but he too will never know where he would really rack up in the end had it not been for the death of senna.

doc bundy told me years ago that in racing , best car wins. i as a racer always liked to consider this a broad and wrong statement but how do you argue w/ doc?

there may only be two drivers that could really buck that statement...clark and senna.

 

Interesting that you say that about Clark and Senna. I bought a book about 10 years ago written in Italian that looked at the career of these two and how much they had in common and how much their deaths were similar.

 

I think all of you are comparing apples and oranges-I think back then the entire crop of drivers were better and there wasn't the level of disparity between the drivers there are today; IMHO today there are only 2 drivers that I believe are capable of winning the WDC-FA and KR. Unless one of the young guns is scary fast or Honda makes a world beater for JB...

As for Montoya, he still finds a need to knock Schumacher. The fact that he's still talking about MS tells you everything you need to know about him as a person. "It's over Juanny, its over"....Maybe he'll watch where he's walking and avoid NASCAR cameramen. Do you ever hear MS commenting on how JPM was KR's *****? No, that's because MS didn't have too.

I love the people who criticize MS because he hasn't won in other series-that's because he hasn't had to race in other series. Last time I checked F1 is the premier racing series in the world, and MS was driving for arguably the greatest sportscar manufacturer in the world; JPM is in NASCAR cause Ron Dennis fired his ass and no other top team wanted the "Columbian cab driver" (Clay's words, not mine). Maybe here in the USA kids are dreaming of winning the NASCAR championship but in every other country in the world that is not the case.

Listen, at the end of the day we can sit here and take shots and render opinions all day at MS, but this is what counts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Schumacher