David Coulthard has made a bit a habit out of criticising the performances of Juan Pablo Montoya this season. The McLaren star seems genuinely bemused at the media-fuelled hype surrounding JPM and in many ways he is quite justified. The Scot has won this season while the Williams driver has not, and that race win in Monaco was undoubtedly the finest of Coulthard's career. The only problem is that in criticising the stream of plaudits heading in Montoya's direction, Coulthard is only highlighting the inadequacies of his own achievements this season.
Montoya deserves praise for his impressive six pole positions so far this season, especially given that five of them were on the trot. This has not escaped Coulthard's attention but he appears more concerned that the press and the public need to understand "there is more to being a racing driver than a qualifying lap and being ballsy". Indeed there is, but if DC feels that Montoya is only good at hot laps and banging wheels he should consider some statistics.
Coulthard took an impressive victory in Monaco but after Hungary still trails Montoya 40 points to 34, despite JPM having no race wins. Montoya has displayed remarkable consistency to be equal on points with team-mate Ralf Schumacher and ahead of Coulthard when both the German and the Scot have collect race wins. On the basis of this evidence Montoya does not appear to be a man who regularly chucks it in the gravel trap as Coulthard implies. Indeed his speed and aggression now appear matched by a new-found consistency. So far this season the BMW Williams has been on pole six times, collected four 2nd places and nine top sixes from 13 rounds of the championship.
A further consideration of statistics from the season so far indicates that Coulthard's criticism of the praise heaped upon Montoya stems from a need to improve his own performances. A title hopeful in pre-season testing, Coulthard lost interest in the early rounds of the championship when the realisation dawned that the championship was a lost cause. Not a particularly professional response from a driver who prides himself on his consistent, hard-working approach to developing a race winning car. More important however, is the performance of DC relative to his team-mate Raikkonen.
"In F1 your greatest rival is your team-mate", or so the adage goes, and Coulthard has struggled so far this season. Out-qualified 5-8 by Raikkonen, Coulthard's qualifying pace has left a great deal to be desired. This is of course always redeemable by an improved performance on Sunday afternoons but once again Coulthard has not been up to scratch. The Scot has 14 points more than his team-mate despite finishing four more races than the Finn and having collected a race win.
DC has pulled out a few impressive performances this season, performances worthy of his skill and ability. Sadly, there have not been enough to allow the Scot to get on his soapbox about rivals such as Montoya. JPM has qualified well this season against a quick and experienced team-mate while Coulthard has struggled to match the inexperienced Raikkonen. The relative performances of Coulthard, Montoya and Raikkonen in race conditions only serve to further undermine his comments.
Coulthard is right to be bothered about the praise heaped upon Montoya; he is an F1 driver and should want it all to be directed at him. Moaning to the press that they lionise Montoya is not the best way to go about resolving the issue; it is not even a good way to resolve it. DC should resort back to the way he countered the inflated praise of rivals at various stages of his career; by performing on track.
Capturing second place in the championship this season will take the shine off of JPM's performances perfectly. All the Scot needs to do is fuse his usually smooth approach with faster qualifying runs and more ballsy race performances. DC, do your talking on the track.
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