INDIANAPOLIS — It’s hard to impress Juan Pablo Montoya, but as he sat in his air-conditioned rental car in the motor-home lot at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he admitted his second-place finish in Sunday’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard was “really huge.”
When he won the Indianapolis 500 as a rookie in 2000, his nonchalant attitude in victory lane ruffled the grizzled veterans who believe that race is the biggest in the world.
That attitude fit in perfectly when he left for Formula One in 2001 and fit the stereotype of a grand prix driver. That’s why it was such a shock when Montoya left F-1 after last year’s United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis and jumped to NASCAR Nextel Cup.
Montoya has already won two NASCAR races, but both came on road courses, including the Mexico City Busch race in March and the Sonoma Cup race in June.
Montoya believes the true measure of his success in NASCAR will come when he wins on an oval, and he nearly did that by finishing second to Tony Stewart in the Allstate 400.
The magnitude of that accomplishment is that Montoya won his the Indy 500 in his only attempt in 2000 and nearly won the Brickyard in his first attempt, which would have made him the only driver in history to win the two races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“It would have been cool,” Montoya said. “To run that competitive in a Cup race is nice. Being at Indy makes it more special. It would have been big. I don’t think anybody has finished first and second yet.
“We’ve got them there, so we have to just win it next year.”
Montoya said this was the first NASCAR race where he actually felt he could pass drivers on the race track. In other NASCAR races, he could start 30th and get up to 12th but not any further.
On Sunday he started second and stayed up front, running near the front the entire race. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway may be an oval, but with four distinct corners, it suits a road racer’s driving style.
“Today, I could pass cars and get runs on people. It was nice,” Montoya said. “It’s pretty cool because here you really have to watch your entry. You can under- drive it or you can overdrive it really easy. There is such a fine line.
“If you take it a little too easy, you can lose half a second. If you take it a little bit too hard, you lose a second.”
Montoya gives NASCAR an international flavor. The driver from Colombia has competed all over the world in CART and Formula One, but he resides in Miami.
But with Montoya’s international image, he is teamed up with Donnie Wingo, a southern-fried crew chief at Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates.
“My first reaction when I was told I was going to be working with a Formula One driver was, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’” Wingo recalled. “But Juan has been great to work with. I never saw him win the Indianapolis 500 in 2000, but Andy Graves told me about it when he worked with him in that race.
“We came here with the intention to win the race. We felt like we had a good enough car, we just came up a little bit short. Tony Stewart had the best car all day.”
Those who know Montoya best see how rejuvenated he has been to leave the world of Formula One and join NASCAR. This may not be his best season in racing, but so far it’s been his most fun.
“I think he is adapting very well,” said Montoya’s father, Pablo. “Part of that is coming from the team, but what I’m happy about is when the car is good he shows he can be there. That, to me, was a question mark.
“I know he was very close, but today was not possible. With Tony Stewart’s car, we would have had to be very lucky to win.”