Exclusive Interview With Juan Pablo Montoya: Did Verstappen’s Reaction to Antonelli Reveal Mercedes' Masterplan?

Former Formula One cult hero Juan Pablo Montoya has suggested that Toto Wolff may be looking to cause mischief with his recent comments about bringing Max Verstappen to Mercedes in an exclusive interview with BettingLounge.co.uk. Featured image courtesy of Sky Sports F1.

However, the Colombian did find the interaction between Vetstappen and current Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli very interesting in the context of the team’s future driver roster.

Montoya has also backed Lewis Hamilton’s influence over Ferrari to grow with the British driver to potentially overtake Charles Leclerc as their car becomes more well-rounded, and sees glory ahead for Lando Norris at the British Grand Prix.

Read the full interview below.

Q: Toto Wolff has said he’s going to finalise his driver line-up in the summer break. What do you think about his comments on speaking to Max Verstappen about making the move to Mercedes?

So I think what he's planning is that he's gonna get Max when Max can get out. And on the basis of what he can do, in my opinion, if I was him and I wanted Max that bad, I would sign Max and go okay, I have the first option when you leave Red Bull. The first time you can leave Red Bull, you can come [to Mercedes]. The first time you can get out of your contract, I get you and it’s Red Bull next year and with the engine change and they struggle then for 2027 you’ll have Max.

So I think then what he's gonna sign then the next step for him is to decide do I sign George and commit to George long term or do I still commit to Kimi? That's the million dollar question they have to decide. They need to and it’s his decision. 

The good thing with him and Kimi is, you know, they have Kimi by the balls. They can tell Kimi we're gonna do a year by year deal. The question is, if they go to George and they offer George a year deal with an option, if George is gonna take that?

George has done a really good job so at that point does Red Bull play the same game and try to sign George?

Okay, you want to sig Max, but we're going to play the same game. So for next year, we sign George for three years. Sign George for a ton of money for three years and if they have a good car and end up with George and Max then it becomes a Mercedes problem, not a Red Bull problem.

Q: Does George Russell deserve a bit more respect than having to deal with this speculation over his future?

I think he’s done a good enough job that he should have more stability than what he has right now. But it's the luck of the draw with how things pan out, you know what I mean? It sucks sometimes, timing is so important that if you're on the wrong side of the timing, it's hard. 

Personally, I don't know if George has spoken to more people but I think if Toto would see that George started to look at options, I think they would look at George differently. I think George to a fault is maybe too loyal. 

That is really good. That is what you would expect from somebody like him but he's not getting the same treatment but hey, it's just speculations at the end of the day

If I was Toto, I would actually commit to George long-term and keep Kimi in the balance as a yeah maybe. They invested a lot in George as well and George is further along. 

With George they did the right thing when they brought him from Williams. He developed in Williams and then when he was ready he was brought in and when he was ready and he was better than Lewis.

Q: Toto suggested that he has managed two drivers capable of winning the title before in Hamilton and Rosberg. Could we see him get the best out of Verstappen and Russell in the same team? 

When you're the boss at some point you are the driver and if you don't want to be here, the door is right there. 

It's like, I don't think either of those two will be allowed to have much of an opinion of the teammate at that point. 

Q: What did you make of Verstappen’s reaction to Kimi Antonelli?

If you wanted to read into things, why was Max so nice to Kimi after their collision? Are they already teammates?

I think he braked too late. I think he was surprised how early everybody braked. He stood on the brakes, locked the gears, tried to avoid a big shunt and then he collided with Max but it could have been a lot worse.

If this decided the championship, Max would have blown up. But I think when that happened, in the way it did, he goes I would have done the same thing, I probably would have done the same thing. I mean inside he would be laughing about it

I think Max was having such an awful weekend that he was kind of probably glad that it happened.

Q: What did you make of the McLarens racing each other in Austria?

They were getting really nervous. I think it’s why they held Oscar out for a couple of laps to lose some time. 

I think if they let them do that the hard thing is, especially at the beginning of the race, I think Lando was quicker and Lando was trying to open the gap and he could get into nine tenths and then with the free DRS he would come back and then into nine tenths and then he got to a point where Lando destroyed the tyre trying to open the gap and he was getting like a little uncomfortable for the team.

It's going to happen. They're gonna end up running into each other at some point. It was nice, honestly. It was a good way of Lando telling everyone to shut up. It's funny because in my house, a lot of people cheer for Oscar and I cheer for Lando. I like both. But I like Lando more and I think Lando's ultimate speed is better than Oscar's but Oscar's is just more complete. It's just two different approaches.

Lando keeps making mistakes and it brings up a stereotype that he’s doing in his own head and I think he did a really good job this week, especially in qualifying. He did a really good job. 

Where it's funny, when normally Lando’s quicker in the races, I think Oscar's car was much better in the race. So I don't know the reason why Lando was so quick in qualifying, it sacrificed maybe a little bit of race pace. And this week was the other way around with Oscar.

Q: Was that the perfect response from Lando Norris to his critics?

They’re gonna go to Silverstone, home race for Lando, and you can see how superior that McLaren is to everybody else. 

I said the other day that the more the Ferrari starts making Lewis comfortable, the better they're gonna start running as a team. I said that before and Lewis is getting closer and closer to Charles and Ferrari is getting better and better and better. It's true, this is the reality. 

You need to have the car and Lewis knows what it takes to have a car, a good car every week that can be competitive every week, that you can be comfortable in and Charles wants that ultimately crazy fast car that when it works it's crazy fast but when it doesn't it really falls off the face of the earth. Having that compromise where the car is more predictable and better goes a way.

Q: Was it only dirty air that stopped Oscar Piastri or does Norris deserve some credit?

No, I think Oscar didn't time it well with the energy management. I think they were too much in sync and they were both recovering the energy at the same time and discharging at the same time.

If they don't pit Lando, I think Oscar would have gone through. When Lando pitted at that point, I felt that Oscar was going to get it. Because Lando started struggling, started making mistakes, started going off. 

Lando made a lot of mistakes in the race. At one point, opened the gap, did a good job, and he was fine. In five seconds, looks good. And then here comes Oscar and Lando, you can hear the panic on the radio going, where am I losing the time? What am I doing wrong? It's like, what the hell? Why am I losing all this time? And I was kind of surprised with that. 

So I said, I don't know if it's the way they need to manage the tyres, that is like, you don't want to burn energy here and you don't want to burn energy there and you want to save the tires here, and so that was a little bit of a surprise, but overall, it worked okay.

The question is, is Oscar this hard rock or is Oscar very quiet and very good at playing it cool, hiding it? Everybody cracks, everybody has feelings, everybody suffers. So I feel that if Lando starts beating Oscar enough, we're gonna see a different side of Oscar.

You can't be this cool and this calm about it and at the same time struggle. At the moment it's easy. In the last couple years he was the underdog and it's okay to struggle and he's learning. But now when you're in the championship and this guy's coming and it's gonna start coming at you every week, it'd be really cool to see if he can get his cool demeanor.

Yeah you're kicking my ass but I'm good with it? Hell. And you start bringing your A-game and your A-game is not enough, then we'll see what everybody's made of because we know Lando can crumble, but Lando can bounce really strong. The question is, if Lando holds this for a couple weeks, then we're gonna see maybe a different Oscar.

Q: What did you make of Christian Horner’s comments about the McLaren cars seemingly suffering less wear on their tyres than might be expected?

It's the same question everybody used to ask about Red Bull a year or two ago. Why are they so good? It's normal. Why do you whine when you're getting beat?

Q: How do you see the race at Silverstone going?

I think McLaren is going to be there. I think with the cooler temperatures Mercedes is going to be better. I think Red Bull is going to run pretty well with the cooler truck as well. Ferrari, the thing is we know McLaren is going to be on top right there but I think between Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes is so close that you don't know who's going to be where.

It's interesting to see how good the Saubers are getting. They're making big steps. Really cool. Bortoletto did a good job. The boats score points.

The Haas is very good in the races. They seem to struggle in qualifying but I think there's a big update coming. I’m not sure where but there's an update coming for them. It’s interesting how the dynamic changes. 

You look at the end of last year, how good the Alpine looked and how much they're struggling now. It's crazy because even the Williams, when they brought their updates early in the year they looked so good and they're like they're coming and it kind of stalled. They've been stalling, they've been having issues. Both of the cars retired yesterday and one didn't even leave the grid.

Aston Martin is struggling a lot. Fernando did a really good job in qualifying again. In Q3, he was really good, but at the same time, the race pace is fading. 

Q: Will the home crowd give Norris the advantage over Piastri?

It’s normal. I think Lando's personality might help him more than hurt him. At the same time I don't think Oscar would be bothered either way. I think with Lewis, it would be a really nice weekend if Lewis can beat Charles at Silverstone. I think that would be huge for Lewis.

Q: What’s your prediction for the British Grand Prix?

I think Lando is going to win. I think it's going to be a one-two for McLaren and I'm going to put Lewis on the podium in third.

I think he's getting closer. Ferrari seem better. I think that Mercedes has a really good, efficient car for low downforce, and I think when we get to Monza, I think it might be a good time for Kimi to win a race. That is one of his home races. 

Other than that, I think it's all so close there in the middle but the Red Bull doesn't seem to be getting any better.