Juan Pablo Montoya, Team Penske
The cast: Race engineer – Brian Campe. Race strategist – Clive Howell. Chief mechanic – Vance Welker.
Twitter: @jpmontoya, @Team_Penske
The car: No. 2 Chevrolet
The driver: Juan Pablo Montoya, who turned 39 on Sept. 20, is from Bogota, Colombia, and resides in Miami with his wife, Connie, and family. … He hosts an annual karting event in Colombia in November, with proceeds directed to the Formula Smiles Foundation (started in 2003 by Montoya and his wife, which focuses on the education through sports for youngsters 6-17 living in vulnerable areas of Colombia as a comprehensive activity to reduce social and gender inequality). He’s a four-time Colombian national karting champion. His son, Sebastian, is involved in competitive karting. Montoya also is an avid radio-controlled airplane builder/pilot.
Season finish: Placed fourth in Verizon IndyCar Series championship standings, gaining two positions with fourth-place finish in season finale at Auto Club Speedway.
The gist: Montoya returned to Indy car racing after a 14-year absence. He’s competed in 59 Indy car races dating to his 1999 CART championship season. He won the Indianapolis 500 in 2000, becoming the first driver in 34 years to win the race in their first career start. … He is the only driver to have won the CART championship, the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race and the Rolex 24 At Daytona in his first attempt. He’s also won in Formula One and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. ... Teammate to series champion Will Power and title runner-up Helio Castroneves.
Season stats: Montoya won at Pocono Raceway in early July (for his 12th Indy car victory) and added three other podium finishes (eight in the top five). He earned the Verizon P1 Award at Pocono, too (his 15th Indy car pole). … He led six races for a total of 167 laps, including a field-high 85 at Auto Club Speedway, and was running at the finish in 17 of the 18 races. … Montoya earned his first top-five finish in the second race of the season (fourth at Long Beach after qualifying 16th) and contributed a fifth place in the Indianapolis 500. From Texas in early June to Pocono in early July, Montoya posted four consecutive top-10 finishes (three podiums). He closed the season with three top fives in a row, including a runner-up finish at Milwaukee. ... Montoya gained a total of 18 positions relative to his qualifying spot over the season (see chart below).
Year over year: 2013 not applicable. 2014 best qualifying of first at Pocono Raceway (10.7 average), best finish of first at Pocono Raceway (9.7 average).
Video: Juan Pablo Montoya reviews his season
He said it: “As I said to start the Verizon IndyCar Series season, we knew it would be a process to get to where we needed to be. I had to grow as a driver. We had to make some movements within the team to be stronger, but at the end of the year I think we were legitimately a top-five car each week. To be honest, I wasn’t ready to stop racing at the end of August. The way we were running each week I wanted to go until October, but finishing the way we did gives us a lot of confidence heading into 2015. I want to thank Roger Penske for giving me such a great opportunity to get back into the series this season with a winning team and also a big thanks to my crew and our No. 2 team partners, Verizon, PPG, Hawk Performance and Chevrolet. This year was a lot of fun and next season should be even better.”
The chart (below): Looking at how Montoya finished relative to his qualifying position:
Click to download the hi-res infographic
