F1 | Montoya: “Triple crown? I'm closer than Alonso"

The Colombian pilot praised the will of Alonso to try to win the "triple crown", a prize coveted by all drivers.

Last year, the Spaniard tried to add to the victory in Monaco with the triumph at Indianapolis 500 but he had to abandon the competition due to an engine failure (coincidentally!) Honda. If he had won, there would have been "only" left for him to win 24 Hours of Le Mans. But first, Alonso will have to face the challenge of Daytona:

“He has a good chance of doing well because he has a good team and a good car-commented Montoya a Mara- last year in Indianapolis he lacked nothing, Honda gave him an excellent engine, he had a great car but was stopped by a mechanical failure; That's the problem with Indy, everything has to be okay.".

Montoya then backed Alonso's chances of joining Graham hill as the sole holder of the much coveted “triple crown”.

“He certainly has the ability to do it, but it's not easy. The truth is that I'm closer than him!”, he joked Montoya, who won both the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indy 500,

“For me, I don't know about Le Mans. We will have to see what happens with the Le Mans regulations and whether there is any chance that Penske can do this in the future. I think it would be a lot of fun to try.".

On this point, he added that he and Alonso are quite similar as drivers.

“I think we are two riders who are not afraid to try new things”, explained the former McLaren driver.

“I don't see any other F1 driver trying to do that: when you're young and you're in Formula 1, you think there's nothing beyond that.”.

However, Montoya thinks Alonso's chances of doing well in F1 this year are good, despite the poor draft McLaren-Honda of 2015-2017.

“They should be much better with Renault”, he said, “although it's true that things have finally started to work with Honda. I follow, but for me Formula 1 has never been the most exciting level of competition.

“American racing is seen more as a spectacle than a sport, but in Europe there are a lot of traditionalist people who say that's not the case. Let's see how Liberty will resolve this.".

Jessica Cortellazzi