Juan Pablo Montoya sees championship hopes plummet
Earnhardt Ganassi Racing's Juan Pablo Montoya finished 35th in the NASCAR Banking 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway Saturday. // Chuck Yadmark, NASCAR Scene
CONCORD, N.C. – Juan Pablo Montoya suffered damage from a chain-reaction fender bender and that resulted in his Chase For The Sprint Cup hopes crashing during the NASCAR Banking 400 on Saturday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Trying to nurse his car around the track after getting the damage on lap 125, Montoya lost a lap before spinning and losing another lap. He wound up four laps down in 35th, falling from third to sixth in the standings and seeing the points margin balloon from 58 to 195 behind leader Jimmie Johnson.
“It’s OK,” the Earnhardt Ganaassi Racing driver said. “It’s racing. If you’re expecting to have 10 clean races then you’re dreaming. We knew it could happen and here, always the restarts are an issue and I managed to slow down and I just got hit from behind. It happens.”
Montoya, competing in just his third full Sprint Cup season and his first where he is (was?) in championship contention, was the only driver to post top-five finishes in each of the first four Chase races.
“We made the Chase and up until today we had four top-fives in a row and what’s bad about it?” Montoya said. “You know what I mean? We were actually surprised. Everybody on the team is doing such a good job that even today we had a faster car than the No. 48 [of Johnson].
“So, it happens. It’s one of those racing things that will happen and we’ve just got to move on.”
The former Formula One driver got caught up in an incident that probably wasn’t his fault. Another Chase challenger, Mark Martin, was the one who got into him.
“They all kind of went [on the restart] and then they checked up and I checked up and I don’t know – somebody didn’t slow down and just ripped off the whole rear of the car,” Montoya said. “Then I got hit into the car in front of us. I don’t know, just one of those deals. It was weird.”
The caution never came out until Montoya spun about 40 laps later.
“Actually a lot of things on the race track you could see and the cautions never came out,” Montoya said. “I think they got criticized last week and I think they went too far this week. It is what it is. Whether you like it or not they are in charge."
