Top 35 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers: No. 8 - Juan Pablo Montoya
Earnhardt Ganassi Racing's Juan Pablo Montoya made NASCAR's Chase For The Sprint Cup for the first time this season. // Chuck Yadmark, NASCAR Scene
Earnhardt Ganassi Racing's Juan Pablo Montoya enjoyed a breakout 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, running conservatively until making the championship-determining field and then stringing together a series of top finishes.
Montoya, in his third full season of Sprint Cup competition, entered the season with a previous top points finish of 20th and with a win in 2007. This year, he and his Brian Pattie-led team showed dramatic improvement. They hovered in or near the top 12 in the standings throughout the season and raced to hold onto a debut berth in the Chase For The Sprint Cup.
Once the Chase began, Montoya and his team hit their stride. They earned six top-10 finishes in the 10-race championship-determining format and were as high as third in the standings for three weeks before finishing eighth.
For Montoya and EGR, it was a season to both be proud of and to build on in 2010.
Montoya, a 34-year-old native of Bogota, Colombia, earned $5,274,195 in purses.
By the numbers: Montoya had a breakout season, boosting his finishing position dramatically from the 25th he earned in 2008. He collected 18 top-10 finishes, pushing his career tally to 27, with seven top-fives to push his career total to 12.
Season highlights: Montoya's performance in the Chase. He finished second at Pocono Raceway in August for his top finish of the year, but it was in the Chase where Montoya shone. The driver opened the 10-race run with four finishes of fourth or better, the only driver to earn top-fives in all those races. He would finish third three times and fourth twice in the Chase.
Key setbacks: Lowe's Motor Speedway in the Chase. Montoya was caught up in a chain-reaction crash and tried to nurse his car around the track, spun and lost another lap before making repairs. By the time the race ended, Montoya had lost four laps and finished 35th - and dropped from 58 points behind the championship leader to 195.
Newsworthy moment: Montoya first gained headlines for mixing it up with Jeff Gordon at Martinsville Speedway and then for doing the same with Tony Stewart in the season-ending race. In the second incident, he was penalized two laps for aggressive driving after retaliating against Stewart. In addition, Montoya gained unwanted attention when ESPN football analyst Bob Griese was asked where Montoya was in the standings and remarked that he "was out having a taco." Griese apologized for the remarks, which Montoya shrugged off.
In his words: "My goal next year is to be able to match the performance we had this year. Of course, you want more things. But I think if we can create stability on the team good enough to be able to repeat our performance, that it wasn't just a one-year thing, I'll be more than happy. Of course, I want to win races and everything, but the way we ran over the past few years against this year, it's been incredible. We've got to be able to match the performance. I think that's the key thing for the team for the future."
