This is something i read a few years back when Montoyas move to Mclaren was announced. It
s kinda funny and creepy at the same time. Came across it again recently , thought would share it with you guys.Sorry if it`s a repost.
Montoya and the Williams Curse
Montoya will be plagued by something in 2005 and beyond that will render his remarkable talent utterly useless. What I am referring to here is the Williams Curse.
Major league baseball in the United States is chock-full of curses, the two most famous being the Curse of the Bambino and the Curse of the Billy Goat, which have prevented the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs respectively from winning a World Series for a combined 179 years. What most people don't realize is that Formula One has a similar curse that prevents afflicted drivers from winning world championships.
Most people don't realize this, of course, because I just made it up. Nevertheless, after doing a considerable amount of research, I have fully convinced myself that this curse does indeed exist, and I'm going to push it like mad because it's the off-season and I have nothing else to write about.
The details of the Williams Curse are as follows:
No driver who has started at least one race in a Williams car has ever moved to another team and won a world drivers' championship. Since 1968, 51 different drivers have sat in a Williams on race day and not a single one of them ever won a championship after leaving the team. Sir Frank has earned a reputation for being rather short with his drivers, and perhaps this is why. He secretly knows that if they go elsewhere, they will never again be a threat to his squad's championship aspirations.
Let's look at some of the lofty names that have driven for Williams over the years and examine how the curse affected them after they left the Grove.
Alan Jones: Jones won 11 races with Williams during his four years with the team. More importantly, he bagged the first drivers' championship for Williams in 1980. He retired from F1 in 1982, returned in 1984 for two completely forgettable seasons with Team Haas, and retired again in 1985.
Keke Rosberg: Rosberg won five races and the 1982 drivers' championship with Williams. He left the team and joined McLaren in 1986, but was dominated by the curse-free Alain Prost and subsequently retired from F1 at the end of the season.
Nelson Piquet: Piquet won seven races as well as the 1987 drivers' championship with Williams. Due primarily to conflicts with teammate Nigel Mansell, he became the first of four drivers to leave the team immediately after winning the title. Piquet filled the seat vacated by Ayrton Senna at Lotus in 1988 with very little success. He did manage to win three races with Benetton in 1990 and 1991, but finished no higher than third in the championship before retiring before the 1992 season.
Nigel Mansell: Mansell, still thought of by many as the consummate Williams driver, won 13 races with the team between 1985 and 1987. He suffered through a disastrous season in 1988 when Honda and Williams parted ways, recording DNFs in all but two races. In 1989, Mansell left the Grove and joined Ferrari. After two years of laboring under the curse and finishing no higher than fourth in the overall standings, he returned to Williams in 1991. The following season he won his only championship in dominant fashion, capturing nine wins and a whopping 14 pole positions. In 1993, Mansell became the second driver to forego defending his title with Williams due to conflicts over his salary.
Alain Prost: There's a reason why Prost was called "The Professor." Prost clearly recognized the existence of the curse and therefore waited until the very end of his career to join the Williams team. After sitting out the 1992 season, Prost took up where Mansell left off in 1993, easily earning his fourth career world drivers' championship. He retired from F1 after the season, obviously thinking he had dodged the Williams Curse and no doubt feeling rather smug. What he didn't realize, however, is that the curse extends to any form of participation in the series. Prost's unfortunate tenure as a team owner was quite possibly one of the worst in the history of the sport.
Damon Hill: A series of incidents in 1995 encouraged Sir Frank to find a replacement for Damon Hill after his contract expired in 1996. As it turned out, Hill had the rare distinction of being quite possibly the only driver in F1 history to be told that he would be canned at the conclusion of what ended up being a championship season. Hill joined the Arrows team in 1997, mostly because there was nowhere else to go, and the curse was on. He did manage to nab an historic first win for Jordan at Spa in 1998, but by the following season he had completely lost his motivation and subsequently bowed out of F1 with barely a whimper.
David Coulthard: Coulthard gained a Williams seat after the tragic death of Ayrton Senna in 1994. He won his first race with the team in 1995, but moved on to McLaren in 1996 to begin his tenure as a support driver for Finnish championship contenders. Kimi Raikkonen's replacement of Mika Hakkinen as McLaren's top driver in 2002 easily rates as the cruelest joke the curse has ever played on a former Williams pilot.
Jacques Villeneuve: Villeneuve is without question the most obvious example of how the Williams Curse can absolutely destroy a driver's career. After two brilliant seasons with the team in 1996 and 1997, Villeneuve left after a down year in 1998 to help start a new team with his manager Craig Pollock. He received an enormous amount of money for his efforts, but his output never came close to matching his income. He was sacked from the team that he helped build following the 2003 season and is currently looking for work.
So you see, Mr. Greenblatt, my belief that Montoya's career will fall apart after 2004 has nothing to do with his ability as a driver, just like the complete implosion of both the Cubs and the Red Sox during their respective league championship series this year had nothing to do with the talent of their players. Curses are hell, Mr. Greenblatt. Hopefully you will be able to cheer your man to victory for one final season before the darkness descends. After that, I recommend you become an Alonso fan.