F1
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA's POV
In his own words, the Colombian legend discusses his love for Miami, technical obsession and mentoring his son, Sebastián.
I was still racing in Formula 1 when I moved to Miami. It was my intention to retire here, but a year and half later and I was racing in the States [competing in IndyCar and sports-car racing]. I love this city. You have all the benefits of living in the U.S. but with a strong Latin culture. I find it easier to get along here if you speak Spanish rather than English. When I was in F1, the “M” races were the best: I looked forward to Melbourne because it’s a cool city with great restaurants. The same goes for Montreal and Monaco. And in Miami we have amazing restaurants, great atmosphere and a beautiful beach. We used to race our karts around the parking lot of the Hard Rock Stadium, exactly where the back straight is now. It’s surprising just how good a racetrack it is.
People might question why F1 is going to the U.S. three times in a season, but all three cities are different. In Miami the crowd is very Latin, in Austin there are fans from Mexico and the Midwest, and Las Vegas will bring in the high rollers from L.A. It’ll be intriguing. The next expansion should be into Latin America. Anything in Colombia, Panama or Costa Rica would be a nice addition to F1. There’s also talk of a Caribbean Grand Prix, which would be amazing.
The only problem with a packed schedule is that the teams don’t go testing anymore. The amount of sim work and prep that goes into the race weekend is amazing, but you only do three days of on-track testing in preseason. On a race weekend, you’re locked into the race program. That’s great if you’re doing well, but if you’re struggling, it’s hard to develop the car.
Most fans think I was just a fast driver, but I knew how to make the car faster.
When I was at BMW, Franz Tost [now AlphaTauri’s team principal through the end of the season] gave me shit about being in the garage before 9 a.m. If the track opened at 9 a.m., he wanted the car on an installation lap at 9:01. I hated being first on track, but he was right. These days, when my son, Sebastián, is on the grid on Sunday morning for an F3 race, the F1 mechanics haven’t even arrived.
I race with Sebas in ELMS [European Le Mans Series], which is cool. It’s a great place for him to develop; you get lots of laps to try things and figure out different lines. Sebastián is very good at the technical side of racing. He knows what he wants out of the car and what’s missing. He understands way better than I did at his age. And he’s got a great understanding of how to manage his tires. I was good technically—I don’t think many people realize how good. Most fans think I was just a fast driver, but I knew how to make the car faster.
Having the Red Bull Junior Team in your corner is a big help. He’s done triathlons since he was a kid, but they’ve managed to improve his fitness and helped build his technical knowledge. I used to race for Helmut Marko [head of Red Bull’s driver development program] and we had a love/hate relationship. These days I know that he just wants to maximize performance. I’m probably far worse! I’m hands-on with Sebas’s career. Most teams can micromanage, come up with generic setups and expect you to drive a certain way. They forget that sometimes by tweaking the setup, you can be more competitive. But I also tell him to figure out how to be fast even if the car is unbalanced, to drive around the problem and give feedback to help the engineers to get it right. That means I give the team—and Sebas—a lot of shit. In the end, they both hate me!
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