JPM: don't expect instant results

Much has been made of the way that Montoya and Raikkonen will get on this year, especially after the feud that Montoya endured at Williams with Ralf Schumacher, but the Colombian claims that he is not expecting fireworks from the off.

"I'm not really expecting to go straight into the first year of races and say I'll be quicker than Kimi," Montoya told Reuters. "It's very hard to do it like that.

"For me it's new engineers, new mechanics, new car and new everything. It's going to be a lot harder and if I'm at his pace I'd be very happy to be honest in the first few races.

"It's like when I came into Formula 1, everybody was expecting me to be as quick as Ralf (Schumacher) and Ralf started out quicker and Frank (Williams) thought Ralf was the guy. He signed for some stupid money and after that I beat him."

Despite playing down his early form against Raikkonen, Montoya has been quick to add that he will be just as keen to ultimately triumph over the Finn, as he will be over every other driver on the grid.

"The racing on the track is going to be as hard as anybody's," he added. "If I had hard races with Kimi when I was in the Williams and he was in the McLaren, you're going to be seeing the same thing but we are both in the McLarens.

"I'm going to be trying my best to try to beat him and he's going to be trying his best to try to beat me. But at the same time we need to work together to make sure we beat everybody else."

Montoya and Raikkonen are due to test together for the first time at McLaren at Jerez in Spain on Thursday.