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Juan Montoya On the Right Track for the Future
Chase for the Sprint Cup contender Juan Pablo Montoya (right), driver of the No. 42 Target Chevrolet, goes over set-up with crew chief Brian Pattie (left).
Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR
By Brad Gerhart
A break out year?
Possibly.
Another step in the right direction?
Exactly.
This year's results is exactly what former open-wheel superstar Juan Pablo Montoya wanted to experience in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Only two races remain on the schedule as the No. 42 car driver accomplished his main goal as he made it into the Chase with an average finish of 13.7 through 34 contests.
On top of that Montoya put forth 16 top-10 finishes, along with seven top-fives, in his third full season in NASCAR's top tier series.
He's currently sixth in the points, 236 points back of leader Jimmie Johnson. Although he realizes his championship dreams will have to wait at least another year the No. 42 Target driver's outlook on the future is as bright as it ever was since his switch to stock cars, after a highly successful career in IndyCar and then Formula One.
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“The key for our team is to be able to match the performance that we have this year next year. Of course we want to win races, and of course we want to do better. But if we can match what we did this year, I think the whole team is going to settle as a top team, and I think that's the key,” he said. He has yet to find his way to victory lane this year, after his first and only Cup victory came last season. Making the next step to elite level will require Montoya to win multiple races if he wants to make the next step as a serious championship contender.
Unlike in his previous years in the Cup series Montoya became a part of the championship Chase for the initial time. “It's intense, but it's -- I don't know if I'm just used to it, and I know what it takes,” said Montoya. Throughout the majority of the races he ran extremely consistent, nearly all the time inside the top-10, but misfortunes in regards to racing incidents really haunted him during the first eight of 10 race to the championship. “We've just been involved in too many accidents, you know. I see two of them not even being our fault,” said Montoya. “I know we wanted to have better results and we'll work very hard to finish a little better,” Montoya said.
The Chase started off on a real high note for Montoya with three straight finishes inside the top-four (third, fourth, fourth and third). However, since then he only managed one top-15 result ( third during the TUMS Fast Relief 500) to go along with three poor finishes in 35th, 19th, 37th, not the championship formula by any means.
Montoya's been amongst the best at every major racing series he's been a part of as he won the F300 championship, in 1998, followed by the CART championship in 1999 and topped off his North American open-wheel career with a Indy 500 victory in 2000. Not to mention he won the 24 Hours of Daytona in his first stint as well. He could not produce championship results in his F1 days, yet he still managed to win seven races in only 94 career starts, including the historic Monaco Grand Prix, before he headed back to the States to showcase his skills, this time in stock-cars.
With his unique talents, his new found consistency along with a team that seems to be on rise, Juan Pablo Montoya could very well be the first native of Columbia to be crowned king of the NASCAR Sprint Cup series.
The opportunity is there and at the age of 34, he still should have many years to achieve his goal of NASCAR Sprint Cup champion.
Brad Gerhart
bgerhart@paddocktalk.com
PaddockTalk Perspective
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