Grapevine: Montoya downplays Busch's F1 test

The former Formula One race winner said the planned test Busch is setting up with Toyota at the end of the year in Japan could end up being similar to the event where Jeff Gordon switched cars with the Colombian at Indianapolis in 2003.

"It's like what we did for Jeff (Gordon)," Montoya said. "We took the real car and the real deal - actually when Jeff was there, the car had no rpms. I told them, 'You can't do that.'

"So when Jeff drove the car, I actually convinced Mario Theissen to put in all the rpms like we normally would when we race it. And he did pretty good. Jeff did really good actually. We were very impressed with Jeff.

"But going from a demonstration to an actual test is a big difference. He's going to get the pleasure to drive a Formula One car, but from there to actually get a proper test, the first problem you're going to get is your neck.

"You need to train for months to be able to hold the neck. At least for the Formula One car."

Montoya said that even a driver of Busch's talent, who has already won on a road course in NASCAR, would struggle with the little time he would probably be given to get used to the car and the track.

"They give you a day or a half-a-day, you're not going to do anything and nobody is going to look at you," Montoya added. "Can he do it for talent? Maybe. But you have to remember, all his life he has done ovals.

"He's not a road course expert. Yeah, he won in Mexico, but he's not a road course expert.

"Part of the challenge that he will have is the same challenge that I had when I came here. I've done how many IndyCar races on ovals? Seven or eight races a year on ovals?

"So I did about 16 races on ovals before I came to NASCAR. So that's a tall order. People don't understand that, but it is."

When Jeff Gordon ran in a Williams-BMW at Indy in 2003 he was around five seconds slower than that year's pole position time, although he reportedly ran less than a second and a half off a benchmark lap set by Montoya earlier the same day.