Juan Pablo Montoya hoping to keep hot streak intact at Charlotte
Earnhardt Ganassi Racing's Juan Pablo Montoya is third in the Chase For The Sprint Cup standings heading into Saturday's race at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
// David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
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CONCORD, N.C. - Earnhardt Ganassi Racing's Juan Pablo Montoya has no complaints about his start to this season's Chase For The Sprint Cup.
"The first four races have been pretty good,” Montoya said Thursday at Lowe's Motor Speedway, site of Saturday's NASCAR Banking 500. “Shame we still haven’t won a race. We have been running pretty good."
Indeed, in his first Chase appearance, the former Formula One driver has recorded four consecutive top-five finishes, but he’s uncertain of his prospects at the 1.5-mile Lowe’s Motor Speedway. He has not run well in the past at LMS, but he did finish eighth in the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 back in May.
"What is going to happen here, I have no idea," Montoya said. "We think we brought our best car. We hope it is good enough and we get a good setup and see what happens. I think overall it is nice to see how good everybody on the team is working and how hard they are working and how everything is coming out. From that point of view, I can’t really complain too much.”
Of the 12 drivers competing in the Chase, Montoya is one of four who have yet to win this season. He has six top-five finishes this year, with all but two of them coming in the Chase.
"There are still six races this year," Montoya said. "We have had four top-fives in the last four races. That is very good, and we have had pretty good cars."
Montoya is also keeping an eye on the race at Talladega Superspeedway on Nov. 1. In five starts at Talladega, he has one top-five and one top-10 finish. His best finish at the 2.66-mile track was second in the spring race in 2008.
"If we are still in the hunt by the time Talladega comes, it is going to be a stressful race," Montoya said. "It will interesting to see what kind of strategy you play during the race because there is always two ways of looking at it: Do you need points and you want to try and lead as many laps? Or do play conservative and play it at the end?"
For now, Montoya sounds content to focus on getting as much out of each race as possible.
"We run as good as we can,” he said. “We are bringing the best cars every week and making sure we don’t leave anything on the table, whether it is qualifying or practice. You are still going to make mistakes. But, hopefully, you make the least mistakes."
