Montoya: I agree with Verstappen there's a British bias in Formula 1

The matter came to a head during the course of the season in which Englishman driver Lando Norris, driving for a British team, fought Verstappen for the titles. Ultimately history will now show that while the Red Bull driver claimed his fourth F1 world title in a row, McLaren are the 2024 F1 Constructors' Champions.

However, Verstappen took offence to the 'British bias' and even taunted their media for their absence when in Las Vegas he claimed the 2024 F1 title while Norris was a disappointing P6.

In the wake of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix season finale, speaking to the media team at Instant Casino, Montoya weighed in on the matter: "I agree with Verstappen that there is a British bias in F1.

“I think the right question is whether Mohammed Ben Sulayem is trying to clean the house. If you're really the body that controls the rules and does everything, there cannot be any favouritism.

“I watched the Qatar GP in English. Lando made the mistake of not lifting, and they, the commentators, go. ‘It's outrageous that he gets a penalty. ‘ Or if Lando makes a mistake, they say, ‘Oh, that’s very rare.’

“Look at when Checo Perez spins. Looking at it from the outside, you ask, He spun, but he doesn’t have any drive in the car. Did he really just spin, or did something fail in the car when he gassed it? Because there's no reason for the car not to work after you spin. He didn't hit anything.

"But automatically the British commentators go, ‘He just spun. It's just a lack of talent. He shouldn't be driving.’ When Max said that he had the ‘wrong passport,’ I could identify with it so much," added the 49-year-old Colombian and seven-time GP winner.

Regarding the upheavals in the FIA of late and a general dismay at the manner in which the organisation, led by President Mohammed Ben Sulayem, is tackling the governance of the sport, Montoya ventured, “I do agree there's always been inconsistency.

"If the FIA doesn't like you, normally what happens with a race steward is that if you are penalised for an incident, the next time you're there, 90 percent of the time, even if you're innocent, they're going to penalise you because you have previous history.

“In their mind, they cannot erase what you did before. You get a reputation. Even if you already paid the penalty. It’s like if you’ve stolen some money and you go to jail, you leave jail, money goes missing somewhere, and the next time a cop catches you, they're going to assume you did it. That's the deal.”

Which ultimately led to the current war of words between the FIA and Ben Sulayem, who has made few friends among the drivers.

Montoya continued: “The drivers feel that they're not given enough respect. I know where they're coming from because it sucks getting penalties because I used to get a lot of them. But if you make a mistake, you need to be penalised. There have been a lot of incidents.

“I’ll give you an example, and I don't have anything against [Kevin] Magnussen, but if you ask any driver what he thinks about Magnussen, everybody thinks he's a weapon. He's dangerous; he's too aggressive; he'll drive you off the track. But if Magnussen does that today, he's going to get a penalty.

“The rules are very simple. If you're side by side in the apex, if you need to share the road, you need to give space; you need to do something. And people are not doing that. And in F1, they always got away with it. But the drivers wrote most of the rules, didn’t they? I believe a lot of the driving standards come from the GPDA.

Montoya concluded with a question: "So, if you were part of the decision-making process for the rules to make it fair, then why are you complaining?"