Montoya leaves F1
In a troubled and "failed" country as Colombia, any sports or entertainment victory outside our borders gives a lot of distraction and happiness.
In 1999, Colombians became fans of car racing, a sport for wealthy people, because of Juan Pablo Montoya, who won the CART season being a rookie. The victory was watched live on national television. Two years later, we become fans of Formula 1, so we had to stay awake overnight at the beginning, get up early in the European summer and have lunch when Canadian, US and Brazil GP were held. Cable channels PSN (Panamerican Sports Network, now defunct) and later Fox Sports earned a lot of rating in Colombia, since broadcast television didn’t show the races live (they were broadcasted a few hours later).
Despite Montoya’s temper, a lot of people in Colombia, even those who didn’t like him as a person, celebrated when he won a GP, something that happened 7 times. Some of us simply loved the confrontation between and Michael Schumacher, specially because JP, unlike the other pilots, didn’t "respect" him at all. Unfortunately, the bad results in McLaren has made interest on F1 to drop so much that the network which has the rights to broadcast F1 racings didn’t show this year’s Monaco and British GP, and moved Canada and US GP to a late night slot.
The announcement of Montoya to race NASCAR next year was a shock for a lot of people, even though Juan Pablo had decided it some time ago. He even told F1 was quite boring:
How hard is it to pass a car in Formula One? You pass ‘em and you touch wheels and you’re an animal. I don’t think you’re going to be happy getting more money and being miserable all day.
But even more shocking was the McLaren decision to release Juan Pablo, preventing him to run the rest of the 2006 F1 season. What a shame, but it seems they agreed to. And everyone is happy: Montoya, Chip Ganassi, Danica Patrick (such a doll!). But what about us? Sunday afternoons will be again for racing, this time the NASCAR racing. Most Colombian Montoya fans will leave F1, because it’s not the same without Juan Pablo there. No matter if you’d like to cheer Alonso, De la Rosa, even Schumacher. You may choose to watch the news instead of getting up early on Sunday. Anyway, hope Montoya finally does well.
In other stuff: What did Materazzi tell Zidane?
Materazzi told him something bad about his sister (Materazzi’s version) or his sister and mother (Zidane’s version). Anyway, I am still surprised: this is the first time that I see the insults being more important than the reaction… Mah!
Comment by Doppiafila — 13 July 2006 @ 7:14 COT
Genial que montoya deje su plaza para Pedro, asi ya tenemos dos pilotos en los equipos punteros de la F1 y un rival digno para Alonso
Comment by inquisidor Eisenhorn — 13 July 2006 @ 11:20 COT
Doppiafila: Hope we learn the truth about the issue soon. I’m as surprised as you.
inquisidor Eisenhorn: You’re right, good for you Spaniards, but bad for us Colombians (and Hispanic Americans)
Comment by Julián Ortega Martínez — 13 July 2006 @ 11:23 COT
Caracol transmite la fórmula 1 los domingos a las 12:00m..
Una lástima lo de Montoya… ¿Será q’ los colombianos veremos la Nascar?
Comment by Camilo Andrés Mosquera — 29 July 2006 @ 20:58 COT
You mean at 12:00am (midnight). What a nice time slot!
Yeah, Colombians will watch the Nascar for sure, as long as Montoya runs there, of course
Comment by Julián Ortega Martínez — 31 July 2006 @ 15:47 COT