ST. PETERSBURG, Florida – Juan Pablo Montoya’s victory in Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg – the season opening race for the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series – delivered a powerful statement.
And to his fellow drivers in the series, they heard that message loud and clear.
“Juan was always going to be Juan,” said third-place finisher Tony Kanaan, who was part of the CART Series when Montoya dominated the 1999 season and won the championship. “He's good. I don't understand whoever thought he wasn't. Look back at the career that the guy had. Obviously took him a year to get a grip on things.
"And, he’s back.
“You watch him. He's going to bring a lot of entertainment this year, a lot more than last year, I would say.”
Montoya has been a vocal point of international racing for three decades. Formula One team owner Frank Williams knew he would be a star of the future and worked out an arrangement with Chip Ganassi for Montoya to compete in CART in 1999. Montoya delivered with seven wins and the series championship and capped off his first career in IndyCar with the 2000 Indianapolis 500 victory.
Montoya won 11 races including the Indianapolis 500 in two seasons from 1999-2000 before Williams reclaimed his prize driver for Formula One beginning with the 2001 season.
Young, brash, cocky and - at times - downright arrogant, Montoya was not popular among his Formula One peers but was a star in the international racing series. He would win seven times in Formula One but grew tired of the politics of that sport and made the startling decision to switch to NASCAR beginning with the 2007 season.
He would win two races in stock cars before coming to the realization that IndyCar is where he belonged. He signed with Team Penske – the most successful operation in the history of IndyCar – after the 2013 season and arrived at St. Petersburg in 2014 trying to learn a car that had changed dramatically since his days in CART.
In Montoya’s own words, he “sucked” on the streets of St. Petersburg in his IndyCar return.
“Last year was very disappointing,” Montoya said. “It was tough not only here but generally on the street courses. I'm a guy that always excelled at street courses everywhere I raced. To come here and have a year with really bad street course racing, it was pretty tough. I was never happy with the car.”
Montoya is a true racer, however, and as the season continued he got better. He broke through to victory lane with a win on the triangle-shaped oval at Pocono International Raceway last July and, by the end of the season, he was one of the most competitive drivers at every race.
His teammate, Will Power, won the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series championship while another teammate, Helio Castroneves, is a three-time Indianapolis 500 winner. Thus when Team Penske decided to expand to four cars by signing talented Simon Pagenaud, there was the thought Montoya was third or fourth on the depth chart.
That is why Sunday’s win is not only a strong statement that Montoya is back and is a serious contender for the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series championship, but his return to prominence will do more to help IndyCar regain popularity as a pinnacle racing series.
“I think it is good for the series,” Power said. “It's good having him in here. He's a colorful character. He is obviously very fast. He has a massive following in Colombia.
“Juan has been known to be a tough teammate. You hear rumors, that type of thing that go around. But he's pretty honest. Like he'll tell you straight up. I don't think he beats around the bush, tries to play games or anything. Yeah, he's good.
“I've enjoyed working with him. I've learned stuff off of him. He's a very tough competitor, tough racer. You know if he's behind you or you're racing with him, he's very difficult to keep behind.
“That's the way he was in Formula One and CART when he was racing back here, just that type of guy.”
For as good as Montoya can be, he is part of a powerful four-driver operation at Team Penske that could totally dominate the series in 2015. Kanaan drives for team owner Chip Ganassi and was the only driver to split the four Team Penske drivers in Sunday’s race. Montoya finished first followed by Power. Kanaan put Ganassi’s car third followed by the other Team Penske drivers Castroneves in fourth and Pagenaud fifth.
Juan Pablo Montoya celebrates in victory lane with his family.
“I think they're just ridiculously good everywhere, to be honest with you,” Kanaan said. “They're here to win races, just like Chip. That's all they want.
“I think year after year they keep increasing the quality of their people. They add another driver this year, which obviously makes those other guys to push each other. I don't think that is a secret, if you look at it. It's quite simple. You have a good organization, you hire the best people out there, your chances of winning are much higher than everybody else.
“Then you get four very good drivers with four very good cars, chances are that you're eventually going to get 1-2-3-4. Like I said, I've been on a team like that before. I think they're dialed in. It's up to us to try to break that, like we did today.
“They're definitely the guys to beat.”
When Kanaan and Montoya raced against each other in CART, Montoya was young and fearless. Sixteen years later, Montoya is wiser and more experienced, but remains fearless behind the wheel of an IndyCar.
And, over time, he has changed but oh, so subtlety.
“Juan celebrating with the fans the way he did today, I can assure that wouldn't have happened 15 years ago,” Kanaan said. “But that was Juan back then. I think you go through experiences in life to learn. I think he got probably a pretty big wake-up call when he moved to the other side, to NASCAR, and he was just one more, right? You have big names there.
“Then when he came back here, he was a little bit of a different person. I can still see the old Juan sometimes on him, which it's great to see. Juan is a good guy to have beside you, not against you. That's the way I put it. That's still there.
“But I think he has a big vision now for the fans and the people that care about the sport which I think in a way he didn't before.”
Montoya is back as a dominant driver in IndyCar. Another big-name winner helps IndyCar regain some of its lost prominence.
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Be sure to catch Bruce Martin's Verizon IndyCar Series Report on RACEDAY on FOX Sports Radio every Sunday from 6-8 a.m. ET.
