By Nikki Reynolds, F1 Editor - Motorsport.com

Juan Pablo Montoya said his decision to switch to McLaren for 2005 was a
desire to move on to new challenges, and claimed disagreements with Williams
had nothing to do with it. The subject of his salary compared to teammate
Ralf Schumacher's was one thing that was thought to ruffle the Colombian's
feathers but team technical director Patrick Head believes a row after the
French GP last July was the defining factor.

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Montoya believed Williams had given Schumacher preferential treatment in the
pit stops that put paid to his own chances and harangued the team in no
uncertain terms on the radio. Not pleased with the verbal attack, Williams
gave Montoya a bit of a talking to afterwards.

"I think Juan was not impressed at having his knuckles rapped," Head said,
according to the BBC. "And I know the decision to sign with McLaren was
taken within a few days of that incident."

"Juan incorrectly thought we had notified Ralf of his actions and called
Ralf in one lap early, so he was pretty strong on the radio abusing the
team. And then I think he went into a bit of a sulk and backed off and
cruised to the end of the race and maybe finished 15 or 20 seconds behind
Ralf."

"In fact, as it happened in that last bit of the race, Ralf made a bit of an
error and slipped wide. Had Juan been on his tail he probably could have
taken advantage of it."

"Verbally abusing the team continuously on the radio we didn't think was
appropriate when the guys had worked their nuts off on the car and done some
fantastic pitstops. Juan didn't like that very much. We did talk about it.
We thought we couldn't have a situation where he pretty much accused
everyone in the team from top to bottom of being incompetent twice."

Despite the disagreements, Head is sorry to see Montoya leave: "Juan is a
passionate character and by virtue of that he sometimes makes impulsive
decisions and comes to impulsive conclusions," he commented. "He's a great
talent and we're sad to see him go."

One cannot help but wonder how a passionate and impulsive individual will
fare with McLaren, a team not exactly well known for being associated with
those characteristics.







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