Montoya nurses hobbled McLaren to points.

Juan Pablo Montoya claims that he suffered from the same tyre flat-spotting that afflicted McLaren team-mate Kimi Raikkonen at the Nurburgring, but managed to avoid the same fate as the Finn, who crashed out of the lead on the final lap.

Montoya dropped down the order after being punted by Mark Webber on the first corner but, despite a damaged floor and bodywork, he managed to claw his way back to seventh place, claiming the team's only points of the day.

"Webber just him me," the Colombian said after the race, "It's a shame because I got off the line really well. I was in P3 by turn one, but [the contact] took half my
bodywork off, and I did the whole race like that. It was pretty hard. My car was pretty tough to drive like that, but I got it home and at least I got two points."

Montoya then revealed that he had run into the same sort of tyre problem as his team-mate, and had to contend with similar conditions before taking the flag.

"I had a bit of a flat-spot, but they told me Kimi had the same thing," he said, "We were lucky. I don't know how bad it was for Kimi, but I couldn't see where I was going. I had to lift just to look for the markers before I braked."

Although Montoya appears to have had a troubled season so far, he has scored points in every race that he's started, and currently shares eighth place in the championship with Michael Schumacher.