McLaren insider shares why Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen caused a ‘big problem’ as teammates

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McLaren look set to win both Formula 1 championships for the first time since 1998 with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

Zak Brown and Andrea Stella deserve great credit for turning McLaren around, but before they were in charge, the last period of domination was overseen by Ron Dennis.

Dennis was responsible for the success of Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Hakkinen and finally Lewis Hamilton before eventually stepping away from the team in 2009.

Hamilton’s drivers’ championship win in 2008 ended a decade-long wait for a title after Hakkinen’s double at the end of the last century.

In the interim, Dennis explored plenty of options in the F1 driver market to try and topple Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso’s dominance at Ferrari and Renault.

Signing Alonso didn’t go well for McLaren, while before Hakkinen’s triumph, Dennis lamented Philippe Alliot as the ‘worst’ driver he’d ever worked with.

In 2005, Dennis ended up with Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya in his cars after Hakkinen and David Coulthard moved on.

Former engineer Mark Slade has now shared why the pair simply didn’t work as teammates at McLaren.

READ MORE: How Kimi Raikkonen reacted to McLaren bosses fawning over Lewis Hamilton before his F1 debut

Why Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya created a ‘big problem’ for McLaren as teammates

Slade, who was a race engineer at McLaren in the 2000s, was asked on Peter Windsor’s YouTube channel about the difference between Raikkonen and Montoya during the 2005 season and said: “So, differences in driving style, [they were] very, very different.

“And that was a big problem, actually, because we ended up having to do different suspension geometry, particularly between Montoya and Kimi.

“So this was a time when crossweight with steer was introduced. Basically, as the driver steers, you can change the suspension geometry, mainly the push rod pickup. So the inside tyre loads up.

“Normally, what happens is the car corners, the inside wheel is lifted off the ground because of weight transfer. But this actually works in the opposite way by forcing the inside wheel down. And you get less understeer in mid-corner because of that.

“And Kimi absolutely loved it. It was just the best thing ever for him. He hated mid-corner understeer. He wanted the car to almost turn itself in. He was very gentle with his inputs.

“He just wanted it right on a knife-edge, so just perfect. And he loved it when we introduced this crossweight with steer because he just suddenly didn’t have to turn so much, and the car would do the work for him.

“With Montoya, he was very aggressive with the steering. So what he tended to do was he tended to offset the balance of the car when he used it.

“He just couldn’t handle it, and we ended up having suspensions that had less and less and less until he actually got to the point by the end of 2005, where his steering was working the opposite way, where it was actually unloading the inside tyre more than our sort of standard suspension had two years previously because he wanted to be so aggressive with the steering on the entry.”

Slade later explained that this made the feedback from both drivers unusable because their cars were so different.

READ MORE: Juan Pablo Montoya shares what has ‘suddenly’ changed at Red Bull to spark Max Verstappen’s resurgence

Who came out on top between Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya as McLaren teammates?

McLaren signed Raikkonen after just one season at Sauber when Hakkinen retired, although he only won his only drivers’ championship when he departed in 2006 to join Ferrari, denying Hamilton and Alonso in the process.

Williams brought Montoya over from IndyCar in 2001, making his debut alongside Raikkonen before he joined McLaren in 2005.

The pair lined up alongside each other on 27 occasions before Montoya quit McLaren over the team’s preferential treatment of Raikkonen.

Raikkonen outqualified Montoya on 16 occasions, taking four pole positions to the Colombian’s two.

The Finn finished ahead of Montoya 15 times, taking seven victories, while Montoya beat Raikkonen on 10 occasions, securing three wins in 2005 before departing.

Montoya had exceptional raw pace, but Slade’s explanation about the McLaren suiting Raikkonen better explains why he occasionally struggled.

It was a fascinating rivalry and led to some brilliant battles that ultimately failed to deliver Dennis the championships he desired.