Mark Hughes: F1's Inside Line

It is now 12 months since Juan Pablo Montoya walked out on F1 and thereby triggered a series of events that resulted in Lewis Hamilton's graduation to the McLaren-Mercedes F1 team this year.

You won't need to be told that Hamilton has since performed sensationally well. In particular he has adapted better than many to the handling of an F1 car on the Bridgestone control tyres. Many drivers - particularly those used to Michelins, like Fernando Alonso - have found that these tyres do not allow them to really lean on the front of the car. They feel they are having to ease into the corner rather than attack it. They feel like they could go much quicker into the turn than the car is allowing them.

Beyond a certain point of cornering load these front tyres will not accept much steering lock. Find yourself running wide with too fast an entry and applying more lock only very gradually changes the car's direction. You lose much of your momentum as you wait for it to respond.

Hamilton's style relies on a little bit of oversteer to help with his direction change. He therefore doesn't need to load the front up as much, doesn't need to apply extra steering lock to make the nose hit the apex. The rears aren't particularly grippy either, so lend themselves to being driven like this.

It all works brilliantly with these tyres, allows him a flowing momentum that makes him quick almost regardless of how the car is handling at any particular phase of the race, whether that be worn tyres/low fuel (when it will naturally be more oversteery), new tyres/high fuel (when the tendency is for understeer). Lewis just trims his approach to the necessity of the moment. And in the process might just be heading towards a sensational rookie world championship (though whisper that thought in your head, don't shout it - there's far too much can happen between now and October).

Shortly after moving across to NASCAR, Montoya was quoted as saying that he only wanted to stay in F1 if he could see he had a realistic chance of the world title. In his position, he couldn't see that situation arising in the next few years.

Well, if he'd just stayed put instead of flying off the handle in the wake of Indy '06, just what might have happened?

Raikkonen had already long done his Ferrari deal and so it's a fair bet that Montoya could have re-signed with McLaren for '07 - alongside Alonso, who had already done his McLaren deal. There would have been no space at McLaren for Hamilton - who would probably have been farmed out to a lesser team to gain F1 experience, or who might have broken free of McLaren and signed elsewhere.

Suddenly Montoya would have found himself sitting in the best car on the grid - and alongside a hugely rated double world champion who was having difficulty adapting his driving to the less grippy control tyres. How would Montoya have got on with '07 control Bridgestones? Beautifully.

He was struggling badly against Raikkonen in '06 because he could not handle the high grip understeer the car had. With grippy tyre war tyres, there was no way he could induce an oversteer balance to compensate for the car's natural tendency to understeer. He couldn't unlock the rear enough to give him the chassis balance that would have best played to his fabulous car control.

But that's precisely what Montoya could have done with these tyres. Just like Hamilton is doing. Just like Alonso is struggling to do.

Furthermore, Montoya would have had a two-year head-start on Alonso in the workings of the team, in knowing which guys to get on his side. And seeing how susceptible Alonso is to paranoia and how well Montoya could wind people up, it's not hard to picture a scenario where JPM was well on his way towards the 2007 world championship.

It's strange how fast things can turn in motor racing, and on what small things they can turn. Montoya's dislike of the balance of a particular car on a particular type of tyre led him to become so frustrated that he walked away from the very thing he'd been chasing for the previous six years. And with hindsight he was possibly right on the verge of achieving it.

He has of course recently scored his maiden NASCAR Nextel Cup victory - an impressive feat for a rookie. But it's all rather overshadowed - on this side of the water, at least - by the rookie achievements of his replacement. Given that JPM is inevitably happy with his NASCAR lifestyle and F1 is in love with Hamilton, everyone's probably come out of this rather well. Don't you think?