Ralf Schumacher è stato “mentalmente distrutto”

(Motorsport-Total.com) – Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya are the most successful Williams drivers of this millennium. Ten of the eleven Grand Prix victories that the traditional racing team has achieved since the turn of the century were credited to this duo.

Schumacher triumphed six times for Williams, while Montoya won four times. And even though the Colombian came out ahead three times in the internal team duel between 2001 and 2004, he praises Schumacher to the skies in the Beyond the Grid podcast.

“Ralf was so good,” he reports, explaining that the German’s speed gave him great difficulties at the beginning of his time in Formula 1. “He was so fast. He played with me for so long. It was so annoying, it was so tough,” remembers Montoya.

It should be noted that in 2001, Montoya joined Williams as a Formula 1 rookie, while teammate Schumacher was already in his third year with Williams and his fifth season overall in the premier class.

“The things he could do with a car in one lap were incredible,” recalls Montoya, who had won the Indy 500 the previous year and the CART series in 1999, making him no stranger to the world of motorsport.

However, Montoya admits that it was “frustrating” at the beginning that he couldn’t keep up with the German. Indeed, Schumacher won three races in the 2001 season and ended the year as fourth in the championship.

Montoya only achieved one victory and sixth place in the championship. And at the beginning of the year, Schumacher was regularly faster than his teammate in qualifying. It wasn’t until the sixth race in Spielberg that Montoya was able to beat Schumacher in qualifying for the first time.

However, the balance of power shifted somewhat in the following years, which according to Montoya had nothing to do with pure speed. Schumacher had a different “problem,” according to the Colombian, who claims: “I mentally destroyed him.”

“Nowadays, with social media and everything, teammates are best friends, go out to eat together and play paddle together. In my time, you didn’t talk to anyone,” explains Montoya, emphasizing that the paddock was “very hostile” back then.

“I talked to Fernando [Alonso] and still do. And sometimes with Rubens [Barrichello] and Massa [Felipe]. And that was it,” says the Colombian, who reveals about his relationship with Schumacher: “We never really talked to each other.”

Montoya explains that as a race driver, if you are “nice” to another driver, “it is hard to be a jerk [on the track]. And it is hard to make a move where you push the other off the track if you like them.”

He learned this lesson in his pre-Formula 1 days in America. Team owner Chip Ganassi, for whom he won the Indianapolis 500 in 2000, once criticized him for not driving aggressively enough against another driver on the track.

“He got mad at me and said, ‘If you want friends, bring them along. You’re not here to make friends.’ And that’s true,” emphasizes Montoya, who had no interest in building a friendship with Schumacher – which, by the way, was mutual.

“I never liked my teammates,” Schumacher himself revealed some time ago in the Formula For Success podcast and explained, “The teammate was always the first one you had to beat.”

After the 2004 season, Schumacher and Montoya went their separate ways. The German switched to Toyota in 2005, while Montoya moved to McLaren. Schumacher continued to compete in the premier class until the end of 2007, while Montoya bid farewell back to America in mid-2006.

Neither Schumacher nor Montoya were able to win a Formula 1 world championship title, but alongside Montoya, former Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost revealed in an interview on the Formel1.de YouTube channel some time ago that Schumacher “definitely had the talent” to do so.