Ex-McLaren driver Juan Pablo Montoya believes the team will “explode” this season as their drivers battle for their first F1 world championship.
Oscar Piastri leads Lando Norris by nine points with 10 races left of the 2025 season. The sport returns to action after the summer break next week with the Dutch Grand Prix, a race Norris won last year.
The two drivers have fought respectfully so far this season and have only collided once in Canada, an incident Norris took full blame for, and avoided a clash at the last race in Hungary despite a late tussle for the lead.
Yet seven-time grand prix winner Montoya, who raced for McLaren from 2005-2006, can see a crash occurring on track given the stakes at the papaya outfit this year.
“The McLaren group is in a groove, it’s peace and love and everybody’s happy and we’re best friends and we hold hands when we go racing together,” said Montoya. “But if I was a betting person, there’s going to be an explosion at McLaren at some stage.
“It is a world championship they are fighting for. When was the last time McLaren had a world champion? 2008 with Lewis. They have the constructors in the bag. And they want to let the drivers race. And they want to see fair racing.
“The question for me is sooner or later they are going to end up crashing. You are going to get to the situation where because they are so close in points, every position will matter. It will get to the point where you will be better off crashing with your team-mate rather than losing the points to win a championship.
“When we come to the last few races, and one guy is five points ahead and he passes you, and it means a swing in points, somebody is going to do something crazy.”
Montoya added that Norris and Piastri may only have one opportunity to win the world championship, given the change in regulations for next year could shake-up the pecking order.
“It doesn’t how good the relationship is or might be,” Montoya, speaking in association with CoinPoker, added. “This is one rare opportunity that they will have of being world champion.
“Let’s say Lando was behind and is about to win the title if he wins the last race, do you think Oscar is going to race him clean? There’s no f****** way.
“If the regulations were the same next year, I think the approach might be different. But with the new regulations being so dramatically different, and there’s no guarantee that the car is going to be competitive next year.
“This might be the only chance for them in their careers to be a world champion.”
