Honda’s Nick Fry reckons that Juan Pablo Montoya would have fared better in F1 had he raced for a team more sensitive to the driver’s needs. It is certainly true that Williams, Montoya’s first F1 employer, is renowned for having a “robust” attitude towards drivers (although it should also be said that Frank Williams knows a good thing when he sees it - he wanted Senna as a Williams driver for years before the Brazilian finally made the switch). And Juan Pablo’s second team, McLaren, are also regarded as fairly picky when it comes to drivers - if you click with the team, you’ll succeed; if not, you might find yourself out in the cold. Whether Montoya would have done better with Honda, as Nick Fry is suggesting, is a moot point, of course.

But is it right that a driver should expect to be “understood” and assisted in his weak areas? The old saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” might come to mind at this point. I suppose it depends upon how much potential the driver displays.

Ken Tyrrell was known as the team manager that could build drivers into champions. Any number of drivers benefited from his advice and encouragement but the best example is probably Jody Scheckter. Early in his F1 career, Scheckter was blamed for an enormous pile-up in the British GP and he was labeled as wild and unruly until Tyrrell got hold of him. Under Ken’s guidance, Scheckter developed until Ferrari became interested in him and the result was a world championship.

Scheckter’s early problems were not really the result of a complex psyche, however - he was young and eager, just needing to be restrained and taught patience. The speed was always there. Drivers like Frentzen and Hakkinen were more complicated and needed to feel wanted if they were to give of their best.

Hakkinen had the good fortune to get on well with Ron Dennis and the rest of the McLaren team and his talent blossomed as a result. But Frentzen never felt at ease with the team that gave him his best chance, Williams, and he soon left. It was his bad luck to click only with second rank teams like Sauber and Jordan, achieving some outstanding results with them but never being in with a good shot at the championship.

So is it worth putting time and effort into a driver’s psychology? I think it must be in that a team that is working together without interpersonal stresses is bound to function more effectively than one that is riven by undercurrents of dissatisfaction. Nick Fry is right to think that Montoya could have been handled better and, judging from the patience with which Button and Barrichello are being treated at Honda, it could be that Fry would have brought out the best in the Colombian. Personally, I doubt it, however.

Montoya has an ego the size of Colombia. That is not really a problem, as demonstrated by Michael Schumacher, but Montoya also has a sensitivity to criticism that is completely alien to Michael. Let Juan Pablo hear that he is being blamed for a few accidents and his anger boils over at the injustice of it all. He is what we might call “fairly volatile”.

Whether Nick Fry could cope with a driver who reacts so passionately to criticism remains to be seen. In Barrichello and Button he has two of the most stable and well adjusted drivers in the paddock. Montoya would be a very different kettle of fish.

Nick Fry of the Honda team has responded to Ron Dennis’ dismissal of F1 drivers, other than Schumacher, Alonso and Raikkonen, as having less to offer than Lewis Hamilton. Dennis claimed that “If you take out the recognised top three, one of whom retired, we felt that in looking at the others…there was no-one who really shone.”

Clearly annoyed that Jenson Button should be included by implication in that blanket assessment, Nick Fry maintains that the Honda driver has joined the elite of F1.

“I believe that Jenson is up there with both Alonso and Raikkonen as the top three,” he said. “There’s others that will do well from time to time but in terms of consistently high performance he’s in the top three without a shadow of a doubt.

“Lewis Hamilton will do extremely well, I have absolutely no doubt about that, but it will probably take a little bit of time,” he said.

“He may do well in the first race but I think we’ve seen with other younger drivers that it takes a bit of experience to do well in every race. And in order to compete for the championship, you’ve got to do well in every race.

“Jenson is the consummate professional, he drives himself very, very hard and there’s not been one time in the last couple of years…where I’ve felt he’s really put a foot out of place.”

It is good to see that Honda still believe in Jenson; expectations in Britain were probably too high when he first entered F1 and the disappointments of the years that followed have eroded his support. This takes no account of Button’s misfortune in being in the right places at the wrong times, however. The list of teams he has driven for looks good (Williams, Benetton, BAR) but invariably he has been with them in their weaker years.

The telling thing about Jenson has been his performance against teammates, especially in racing rather than qualifying. He has consistently finished ahead of such competition as Ralf Schumacher, Jarno Trulli (eat your heart out, Toyota) and Jacques Villeneuve. And, in 2006, he got the better of Rubens Barrichello.

Clearly, the potential is still there. All that remains to be seen is whether Jenson can perform at the top for a whole season and win the championship. If the car is good, and it really ought to be, I believe Button can do it.

What I particularly like is this quote from Nick Fry:

“Before the race (in Brazil) we were very clear that to have a chance of getting on the podium from 14th on the grid he had to overtake six cars on the first two laps,” he said.

“Jenson said ‘I can do that’. It wasn’t a matter of persuading him, it was ‘I definitely can do that’. And he did. And I think that is really the difference after Hungary compared to prior to that.”

That doesn’t sound like a man who thinks his best days are over. To be that confident after so many previous disappointments shows that Jenson can weather the storm and come out on top in the end.

Here’s a strange little news item from F1 Racing-live: Honda’s Nick Fry has apparently criticized BMW Sauber for the way they intend to use their third driver, Sebastian Vettel, in 2007. He thinks that having Vettel drive the cars during practice will annoy both contracted race drivers as they lose valuable time on the circuit.

He may have a point. But why would he bother to say so? If a close competitor is making a tactical error, surely it would be best to grin and keep quiet? Admittedly, Nick “expressed delight” that BMW should make such an error but it makes no sense that he should announce it to the world, thereby giving his rivals the opportunity to realize and fix their mistake, if that’s what it is.

It reminds me of Flavio Briatore’s outburst against McLaren earlier this year. That made no sense at the time unless it was viewed purely as a chance to grab some attention during a quiet week for F1. Perhaps Nick Fry has subscribed to the Briatore school of public relations and the belief that any publicity is good publicity.

It seems a waste of words to me, however. In view of the fact that I have suggested Honda as a good bet for the championship next year, I find it slightly worrying that their team manager should indulge in such pointless statements. Shouldn’t he be far too busy preparing for next season to be worrying about what BMW Sauber are up to?

Maybe I’m just old fashioned but I like the quieter style of Ron Dennis. You don’t see him courting publicity or criticizing the way others run their teams - he lets them make their mistakes and gets on with his own business. Did you see any response from him to Flavio’s critique of his motorhome, for instance?

Of course, Nick Fry’s words were probably spoken in an unguarded moment and some journalist, desperate for some news in the off season, has run with them. And yes, I’m getting a post out of them too. But at least I didn’t headline it “Honda Slams BMW!”