Montoya shrugs off Suzuka retirement

Montoya took the lead from eventual race winner Rubens Barrichello of Ferrari with a stunning move at the high-speed Spoon Curve after his first attempt at the hairpin didn't quite work.

"I got past Rubens at the second attempt," he said. "I was coming out of the hairpin really slowly and I think Rubens was trying to protect his line and touched the white line, going slightly sideways and had to lift off the throttle a little, so I went for it. I had to, and it worked."

Bad luck struck a few laps later, and Montoya was forced to cruise to the pits with hydraulic failure.

"It's a true shame because our car has been very reliable this year," he added. "I felt a loss of some of the controls and that was it. With hindsight, I'm not that displeased because I was no longer in the battle for the drivers' championship, because retiring at the last race, in this way, would have been much harder."