The Race
patreon
EARLY ACCESS: BBV10s S12 E4 - Montoya's final Williams win at Brazil 2004
🕑 Added 2025-07-17 09:40:33 +0000 UTCJuan Pablo Montoya and Williams brought their rollercoaster relationship to a close with a memorable victory at the 2004 season finale in Brazil, where Montoya beat his future McLaren team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in a tense battle.
Glenn Freeman is joined by Jon Noble and Ben Anderson to look back on a weekend where dominant 2004 champion Michael Schumacher was a surprising non-factor, and Montoya was able to salvage something from a tough season for Williams.
Off-track, we look at David Coulthard's bid to get a drive with Williams, and why the team was also looking at bringing his old McLaren team-mate Mika Hakkinen out of retirement. Plus we revisit how Eddie Jordan realised he was reaching the end of the road in F1 as a team owner.
There's plenty of F1 politics, with new rules announced for 2005 and 2006 (including the banning of V10s!), and another dispute where the entire grid seemed to be united against Ferrari.
And we couldn't possibly talk about the end of 2004 without paying homage to 'Donkey Does F1', looking at how an inflatable donkey probably became F1's first viral character!
Comments
Liam Meade
Here’s a big sliding doors moment: If David Coulthard hadn’t joined Red Bull in 2005 and had gone back to Williams, would Adrian Newey still have ended up at Red Bull? Food for thought.
Anssi Rulamo
Brazil really wasn't an anomaly for Schumacher, he also had a terrible weekend just two races before in China. And before that he also failed to win in Spa and Monza. Suzuka was the only race he won after Hungary.
