McLaren praise Montoya's better attitude

Montoya's outburst in Melbourne, where he hit out at Kimi Raikkonen for being aggressive on the first lap and the team for delaying his final pitstop while they changed his teammate's nose, did not go down well with certain factions of McLaren.

It is understood that some mechanics were far from impressed with his comments and made their feelings known to Montoya when he returned to duty for the team at testing in Barcelona after the race.

However, following intervention from McLaren boss Ron Dennis and a sit-down talk with senior team management about his approach, Montoya duly took their concerns on board and delivered his first podium finish of the season at Imola last weekend.

McLaren's F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh confirmed that there had been discussions before the San Marino Grand Prix weekend about his attitude - and believes that Montoya's criticisms were the result of his frustrations at crashing out of the Australian Grand Prix.

"Yes, there were some talks before this weekend about being a team player," explained Whitmarsh. "And I think Juan actually did a good job here.

"In Australia he was frustrated with the situation and frustrated with himself. We had a bit of frustration as well, and we also had a chassis back at base with the floor ripped out of it. So we were a bit disappointed too.

"I think JPM is a very passionate individual, an enthusiastic individual, and a brilliant driver. But sometimes that passion overflows into saying things that were not the right or smartest thing to do. So everyone knows that about him, but even so some comments aren't helpful and don't do him or anyone else any good.

"He knows that, and he is an intelligent enough individual to recognise that. He went to Imola with a point to prove, that he can play a disciplined team game, which is exactly what he did."

Whitmarsh believes that Montoya made the most of his opportunities throughout the San Marino Grand Prix weekend - especially considering he failed to do a quick lap in Saturday practice when his car suffered a fuel-feed problem on his installation lap. He had to take the spare car for qualifying.

"He was very much on the back foot going out in Q1 with the T-car, having swapped the engine across, and not really having had the miles," said Whitmarsh. "So he went out for the first time properly in Q1 and it was tight to get through Q1 and Q2, but I think he ultimately did a pretty good job in Q3.

"And in the race it was a disciplined approach. When you look at the pit board after one lap and see yourself in seventh place then you have got to be focused and realise also it is not a circuit that you can easily overtake on. You can lose heart and focus if you are not careful, but he did all that was necessary.

"He turned it up when he had to at the odd moment when he did not have a car in front of him to come through for a podium finish."

Whitmarsh's positive comments about Montoya have not been repeated for Raikkonen, who the team believe under-performed in qualifying. The Finn could manage no better than eighth on the grid despite being one of the fastest cars in the low-fuel sessions.

"In qualifying I think Kimi had, if you look at the times he did in Q2 and the times he did in Q3 and put that all together, he could have and should have been on the second row," added Whitmarsh.

"Had he done that, with that strategy, it would have been difficult to beat Alonso, but with the strategy they ran we could have beaten him."