Montoya (right) has joined McLaren after four seasons at Williams

Montoya is vying for supremacy at McLaren after joining from Williams.

"The racing on the track is going to be hard. I had hard races with Kimi when I was in the Williams and he was in the McLaren," said Montoya.

"So you're going to be seeing the same thing when we're both in McLarens. I will be trying my best to beat him and he'll be trying his best to beat me."

Montoya said the situation at his new team could be similar to his first season with Williams, when he went up against team-mate Ralf Schumacher.

"When I came into F1, everybody was expecting me to be as quick as Ralf," said the Colombian.

"Ralf started out quicker and Frank (Williams) thought he was the guy. He signed for some stupid money and after that I beat him.

We've got great guys in the team and Kimi and myself can do great things with the car Juan Pablo Montoya

"I'm not really expecting to go straight into the first year of races and say I'll be quicker than Kimi. It's very hard to do it like that.

"For me it's new engineers, new mechanics, new car and new everything.

"It's going to be a lot harder and if I'm at his pace I'd be very happy to be honest in the first few races."

Montoya was cautious about McLaren's chances for the new season.

After a dismal start to last year, the team introduced a new car and Raikkonen began to compete with the front-runners again, winning in Belgium.

"I don't know how good we are going to be," said Montoya.

"This business is very hard and I don't know where we are going to stand, especially with the new rules.

"From the technical point of view I don't think we can ask for a lot more from the guys we've got.

"We've got great guys in the team and Kimi and myself can do great things with the car.