Montoya: Canada 2001 Turning Point for Me

Williams driver Juan Pablo Montoya has admitted that last year's Canadian Grand Prix was the turning point for him and the team after a difficult start to life in Formula One.

Montoya was frustrated at a lack of reliability in his first season with Williams last year, but after crashing out in Canada he ensured his troubles were put to bed. The Colombian said that his decision to try to force changes to be implemented to the unreliable car paid dividends and insisted the Grove-based team have not looked back since.

"After Montreal last year I got really pissed off with the team and I told them that when the car was shit it was shit, and when the car was good it was good," Montoya said on Friday in Montreal. "We made some changes to the car and we started driving our own set-up and that made all the difference.

"I talked to the engineers a lot and said to them 'you've got to start to believe what I'm saying' and it paid off."

Montoya's frustrations at the lack of competitiveness boiled over before the Canadian Grand Prix last year when he was involved in a bust-up with British American Racing's Jacques Villeneuve.

But Montoya insisted that the confrontation was not the point in which he realised he needed to change his attitude towards the job and said: "I never saw the thing with Jacques as any of my fault to be honest. The guy paid for his error."