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Last week’s news that Juan Pablo Montoya was returning to the Cup Series and NASCAR was exciting for race fans of all types. The former CART Champion, Indy 500 and Monaco Grand Prix winner has a reach beyond just the NASCAR community. But for many younger fans, a driver who has not raced in over 10 years may not mean as much as, say, Clint Bowyer racing for the first time in three years. So who was and is Juan Pablo Montoya?
Debuting on a national stage in 1999, the 23-year-old took on the Championship Auto Racing Teams, better known as CART Championship, driving for Chip Ganassi. Racing against names like Gil de Ferran, Greg Moore and a young Dario Franchitti, the young Columbian driver held his own.
Finishing the season tied with Franchitti for points, Montoya, having won seven races, won the series championship as a rookie. The 2000 CART season would show lesser results for Montoya, however a one-off start in the Indy Racing League, would etch his name in the record books.
In his first Indy 500, Montoya started second and led 167 laps. At the time, he was the first rookie in 34 years to win the Indy 500, joining the likes of Formula One legend Graham Hill.
This honor foreshadowed Montoya’s move to Formula One in 2001. Driving for Williams, then known as BMW Williams F1, from 2001-2004, Montoya won four races and finished third in the World Drivers’ Championship twice.
After a soured relationship with Williams, Montoya moved to McLaren in 2005, where he would win three more races. That season was derailed by injury, and Montoya’s tough start to 2006 saw him out of the ride and headed back West.
Montoya would not only return to the US after Formula One but to Chip Ganassi Racing. In the same year he started the Monaco Grand Prix, Montoya would start a race in the then ARCA Re/Max Series at Talladega.
Having never raced a stock car before, Montoya qualified second and finished third. He would follow this up with a second-place qualifying position at Iowa the following week but finished 24th.
Montoya subsequently would step up to the Xfinity Series, where he would once again show speed but to little result, finishing a best of 11th at Memphis. Following these starts, Ganassi moved his new prospect up to the Cup Series for the season finale.
On the same day Montoya debuted and finished 34th, Jimmie Johnson won his first NASCAR Cup Series Championship. While many thought Montoya was moving too fast, having a full-time spot in Gannasi’s flagship 42 car for 2007, the now veteran driver would prove the world wrong in 2007.
Montoya’s first season was a part of an interesting time in NASCAR history. This was the beginning of a period when IndyCar and other circuit-based racing series drivers attempted to race in NASCAR. This list included:
Always the standout, Montoya would be the first of these drivers to win. Running a part-time Xfinity Series schedule for Chip Ganassi Racing, Montoya won his third start that season at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Not only would his part-time Xfinity ride show a win, but his full-time Cup ride would also be in victory lane by season’s end. The 16th race that season would be at Sonoma, a track where drivers of other disciplines had seen success in NASCAR. Montoya would win that race, his first of two wins in the Cup Series.
The former Formula-One and CART standout had found a new home. From 2007 onward, Montoya would be known as a threat at every road course and, like most drivers, gained fans and haters.
2008 saw fall off from his first season, finishing winless and 25th in points. However, 2009 would be a year to remember for Montoya. That season, he finished eighth in points, and despite being winless he led 388 laps that season and scored seven top-fives and 18 top-tens.
In 2009, Montoya won for the final time in his full-time NASCAR career. This was at Watkins Glen, where Montoya previously had only led two laps; that day, he led 74 of 90 laps.
Montoya would have a relatively quiet career from here on out with few notable races. Many view his infamous collision with the jet dryer at Daytona in 2012 as the most prominent moment of this time.
By 2013, Montoya, with young Kyle Larson in the wings at CGR, saw the door opening and took an exit to familiar ground.
Montoya returned to Indy Car in 2014. This time, he would race for Team Penske, and his schedule included two Cup Series starts at Michigan and Indianapolis. Ultimately, he would race for the Indy Car team for three full seasons from 2013 to 2014.
His 2014 campaign featured one win and a fourth-place finish in points. His two-win 2015 campaign saw Montoya win yet another Indy 500 and tie Scott Dixon for the points at the end of the season. Despite these efforts, Dixon had three wins to Montoya’s two and won the tiebreaker.
After a slower 2016 Indy Car season, in which Montoya won his final race, he retired from full-time competition. He would race in two races for Penske in 2017. However, his pursuit of glory would continue into 2018.
From 2018 to 2020, Montoya raced in most of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for Penkske, winning three races and the championship in 2019. Since 2020, Montoya has raced part-time in sports cars and Indy Car.
The news of Montoya’s return to NASCAR in 2024 has introduced a new generation of fans to how fearful drivers were of his skill on road courses. With a career lasting over 20 years, every race he will start is a connection to a bygone era in motorsports.
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