Theissen: No Doubts over Montoya's Motivation

Juan Pablo Montoya is determined to win the title before he leaves for McLaren-Mercedes for 2005 - according to BMW motorsport boss Mario Theissen.

Theissen told Atlas F1 that the team "would have preferred to keep Montoya after 2004" but said they have no concerns that the Colombian star will try to fly the nest a season early.

"I have talked to him several times in the past weeks and I would say he is more motivated than he was before," said Theissen. "It is an unusual situation but I prefer to have it open on the table and visible to everyone. I have no doubt about his motivation.

"He wants to achieve something and he knows he has a chance so there is no way he would want to stay at home and do nothing. We want to win the Championship, he wants to win the Championship and it would be much better for him to go to another team as the world champion than to go as number two."

Montoya took the fight to Ferrari's eventual world title winner Michael Schumacher this year but a penalty in the United States Grand Prix ended his hopes and he missed out on the title by 11 points.

A disagreement over his future with Williams, however, left a sour taste in his mouth and in a bitter twist soon after the season came to a close he announced his decision to join their rivals McLaren in 2005.

But Theissen promised Montoya will not be outcast at Williams next year and added: "He will get the same treatment as this year, the same treatment as his teammate. We need him, as we need Ralf [Schumacher], to secure as many points as possible.

"Taking know-how from the team is not a problem for us either. I would be much more nervous about a leading engineer moving on because a driver knows how the car behaves but he doesn't usually know why. And if you look how fast moving Formula One is today I am not really concerned.

"Even if he gets knowledge of some technical issues at the end of the season this will be outdated already before our competitors can use it."