JUAN PABLO MONTOYA MAGIC MOMENTS CAPTURED ON CAMERA

1998 PAU GRAND PRIX VICTORY IN F3000

Lapping the entire field at the epic French street track

“I beat everybody by a lot there! In 1997, it was a great year because I was on pole by four tenths and won it by almost 40 seconds. In 1998, the cool thing was I was on pole by four tenths, but I still thought they might beat me so towards the end I gave it a proper go, I was another half-second up, and I got to the chicane and destroyed the car. I put a hole in the chassis and everything, and the guys stayed up all night.

“So, to come back and win the race for the guys who didn’t get five minutes of sleep was pretty awesome. And to lap the whole field was pretty cool!

“I think I got a 15 or 20s lead straight away when they all shunted behind me, but I was fast enough to catch everybody. My engineer was really worried, because I was taking a second per lap from the guys fighting over second. So when I saw them on the straight ahead of me, I got even more excited and started going even quicker! My engineer was on the radio: ‘Hey, hey, hey, there’s no need to lap them, don’t throw this away!’ So I backed off, but I still caught and passed them.”

FIRST WILLIAMS F1 SEAT FIT

Signed as test driver for 1998 along with Max Wilson

“This was really special. This was my first F1 seat fitting, and what was crazy is that I have really big thighs and [engineer] James Robinson was there and I got in the car, so he asked, ‘How do you fit?’ and my legs were