Racing
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Juan Pablo Montoya has pushed back against calls for Formula 1 to return to V8s on nostalgia alone, arguing the racing from his era was often dull and that the 2026 rules could produce more genuine on-track fights than the old DRS model ever did.
Speaking on the BBC Chequered Flag podcast after the Miami Grand Prix weekend, Montoya dismissed the romantic view of the early-2000s and V8 period. “People say, ‘Oh, your time was so good’, I say, ‘Watch a race, it’s so boring’. Even for us. It was sometimes like a short test session,” he said.
That matters because the future engine direction is already under debate. FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has said V8 engines are “coming,” with a return possible as soon as 2030 and, at the latest, 2031, while Formula 1 and the FIA are still trying to calm criticism of the 2026 rules and their heavy electrical component.
Montoya’s argument is that the new format may be harder to read from the outside, but it gives drivers more ways to defend and attack. On the same podcast, 1996 world champion Damon Hill said the regulations are “confusing a little bit, because we don’t know when they’re deploying boost and stuff,” and added that some overtakes leave viewers asking, “How did that happen?” Montoya’s response was simple: “I like that.”
He said the battery-dependent racing creates a more authentic contest because a driver under threat can still respond. “If you see the guy’s going to pass you, you can get into recharge mode earlier, and then you have a little bit more extra energy for the next straight and you can fight your way,” he said. Hill called that style “very new” and “actually quite good,” even if it is hard to follow, and Montoya agreed: “I think it’s really good.”
His support for 2026 is tied directly to his dislike of DRS, which disappears at the end of 2025. Montoya said, “For me, DRS was such a BS,” and argued it made the defending driver helpless. He said he always felt “you were a sitting duck” because being a second, or even nine tenths, behind was enough for the car behind to drive past at the end of the straight. When people praised those passes, he rejected the idea that much had really been done: “What do you mean, what an overtake. He didn’t do anything. He was just sitting there.”
He has made the same point elsewhere. Speaking to RacingNews365, Montoya said fans who claim his era was better should go back and watch it again. “Have you really watched a race from my time and seen how boring it was?” he said, adding that although those cars had “950 horsepower and weighed 600 kilos with the grip tyres,” “the races were terrible.”
That leaves Montoya arguing against two common instincts at once: the idea that older Formula 1 automatically raced better, and the assumption that the 2026 regulations are doomed because they look unfamiliar. In his view, the current championship is already “a really special era” because “you have four teams that can win races,” and the next ruleset should be judged on whether it keeps that competitive fight alive rather than on any desire to recreate the sound and image of the past.