Felix Sabates not surprised with Juan Pablo Montoya surge
Felix Sabates is a co-owner at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
Related articles: Juan Pablo Montoya hoping to keep hot streak intact at Charlotte
CONCORD, N.C. – Felix Sabates still owns a piece of Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, and he thinks driver Juan Pablo Montoya could own the Sprint Cup title by the time 2009 is over.
Montoya is third in the standings, just 58 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson.
“I’m not surprised at all,” Sabates said Thursday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway prior to practice for the NASCAR Banking 500. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he wins it. This is like David and Goliath. You’ve got powerful Hendrick organization with an unlimited budget and us with one-and-a-half sponsors and very little money.
“For us to be running consistent every week tells you something about the team, but more so it tells you about the talent Montoya’s got. He’s taking not the greatest of equipment – we’ve got good equipment, but we’re not with Hendrick. Nobody is with Hendrick and we’re competitive.”
One of the few open-wheel drivers to be successful in NASCAR, Monotya is his third year since coming over from Formula One. Now that he has experience on ovals, he is starting to show his talent, Sabates said.
“If Juan was driving a Hendrick car, he would have won six or seven races this year – because they’re that much better,” Sabates said. “Not that we’re bad, but they’re that much better.”
Montoya had two top-five finishes all season but is the only driver to have four top-five finishes in the first four Chase races. He is looking for his first victory since his lone win in 2007 at Infineon Raceway, a span of 86 races.
“I’m very surprised [he hasn’t won this year],” Sabates said. “On the other hand, I sit on the tool box every race, and he could have won some races. He’s definitely capable of winning races,
“We wanted to make the Chase, and we were very conservative – especially after Indianapolis. Our plan was simple: You win at Indianapolis, you can make a big enough jump in the points that you can take some chances. Well, we ended up [with a speeding penalty] at Indianapolis. … So we went conservative.”
Sabates credits NASCAR’s new car with helping create parity in the sport.
“What [we] proved is that you don’t have to have a budget of $30 million to run one car,” Sabates said. “We made a lot of sacrifices. We don’t have an airplane. We have to rent an airplane to go to the race track. … We have no company cars. All we have is whatever Chevrolet gives us.
“We have two guys staying in a room. We don’t have many specialists. Before we had a guy who was a specialist on the left fender and another who worked on the right fender. Now we’ve got one guy who puts all the fenders and the roof on the car. That’s the way it used to be.”
The Cuban-born Sabates said that the Latino community is following the Colombian-born Montoya and NASCAR will see that influence if he is in contention at Homestead.
“If he wins a couple of races and goes to Homestead with a chance of winning a championship, you’re going to have 10,000 Latinos there,” Sabates said.
