Former Grand Prix winner Juan Pablo Montoya believes that Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso are the best drivers on the Formula 1 grid.
Speaking to the official F1 website, Montoya said, “Vettel is one of the most complete guys and I think Fernando… I ran with Fernando all my career and I think those are the two overall best drivers.”
“Lewis does a really good job but they are in the best car. It’s very easy to think the guy in the best car is the best driver, but the question is if they were not in the best car, how would they handle things? I think Fernando and Sebastian have endured that and I think they are the best.”
Montoya also shed interesting insight on the psychology of dealing with teammates, recalling his four seasons (2001 to 2004) sharing a pit garage with Ralf Schumacher at Williams.
“I learned a lot with Ralf, he was really quick but European drivers are very weak mentally. You can get in their head really easily and I think that plays in what you see today and what you see always in Formula 1.”
“When things go their way they are really strong. When Lewis is winning he is unstoppable, but if something goes wrong the spiral down is huge. If the cars were close together you would see different people winning.”
But Montoya believes that Michael Schumacher was an exception to the rule, “I think Michael was one of the few guys that was really strong. You could get in his head but he was really strong.
“Ralf, on the other hand, was a guy that to beat him was nearly impossible, but if you could beat him on his ‘A-day’ you could get in his head. It was tough, we all have weakness, you just have to figure which ones they are,” added Montoya who won seven grands prix in 94 starts.