Juan Pablo Montoya excited to have Jamie McMurray join Earnhardt Ganassi Racing
Juan Pablo Montoya will have a new teammate in Jamie McMurray next season at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. // James Rapp, NASCAR Scene
Related story: Jamie McMurray to join Earnhardt Ganassi Racing for 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup season
CORAL GABLES. Fla. – Juan Pablo Montoya said he has talked at length with new teammate Jamie McMurray and is excited about having the Roush Fenway Racing driver join him as a teammate at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing in 2010.
McMurray, who drove for team owner Chip Ganassi from 2003 through 2005 before going to Roush, was officially announced Wednesday as the replacement for EGR’s Martin Truex Jr., who is headed to Michael Waltrip Racing.
“It is great to have Jamie as a teammate,” said Montoya, a Miami resident who was at the Sprint Cup champions news conference to help promote the season finale this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway. “I’ve talked to him a lot this year, and we talked a lot in the last couple of weeks about the cars. I’m pretty pumped up.
“Truex was a great teammate, but he was on his way out. His mind wasn’t on the game this year – not saying in a bad way, but he was more focused on his future than on the present.”
McMurray just barely missed making the championship field now known as the Chase For The Sprint Cup while driving for Ganassi but hasn’t had as much consistency at Roush Fenway. He has won two races at Roush Fenway, including earlier this month at Talladega Superspeedway.
“McMurray really needs to prove a point to a lot of people,” Montoya said. “I think we can give him the tools to make that happen.”
