Montoya ‘Excited’ About One-Off Cup Series Return

Juan Pablo Montoya is back in the NASCAR Cup Series after a 10-year absence at Watkins Glen International. (NASCAR photo)

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – For all the things Juan Pablo Montoya has done in his lengthy and diverse motorsports career, he looked like a kid in a candy store Saturday morning at Watkins Glen International.

Montoya, the 1999 CART champion, two-time Indianapolis 500 winner, 2019 IMSA sports car champion, seven-time Formula One winner, and a nine-year NASCAR Cup Series veteran, is returning to the garage area at stock car racing’s top level for the first time in a decade this weekend with 23XI Racing.

He’s driving the No. 50 Mobil 1 50th Anniversary Toyota Camry XSE in his first Cup Series start since the 2014 Brickyard 400, when he drove a pair of races with Team Penske. It’s a third 23XI entry alongside teammates Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace.

The race for Montoya is a unique, one-off opportunity that materialized thanks to 23XI Racing president Steve Lauletta and Mobil 1, which was Montoya’s first sponsor in his home country of Colombia and also backed him in F-1 at McLaren.

For the now 50-year-old, who has done virtually everything there is to do in professional racing at one time or another, he called this weekend’s NASCAR return “exciting” during a scheduled media availability ahead of practice and qualifying at the 2.45-mile, natural-terrain road course.

“It’s really good to be back, even if I have no idea what to expect,” Montoya laughed. “I think I should run pretty well, but that is all I can tell you right now. It’s so difficult, because you come into a weekend where you get such minimal practice … I don’t know. I’m just going to go out there and see. It’s either going to be ‘Oh, it’s not too bad,’ or I’m going to go, ‘Oh, [boy],’ but we will see.”

Though testing is outlawed at any of NASCAR’s active tracks, Montoya tipped he was able to climb into the Next Gen car – which he’s never driven since its debut in 2022 – for a short safety check.

“I drove the car at VIR, and did about 40 laps, just to get comfortable – make sure the seat and everything was working – and I felt pretty good with the car,” he explained. “I felt like it was easier to drive than the last car, but when you talk to your teammates and the team and everyone is like, ‘It is so difficult to drive,’ it makes you think a bit.

“I talked to (Michael) McDowell, though, and he feels it is much easier to drive – more like in GT3 – and I told him that’s what I thought, so it’s a lot of information to sort through and understand.”

Montoya, who has been focused recently on his son Sebastian’s burgeoning racing career in the FIA Formula 3 Championship, circled back to his prior business relationship with Lauletta as a major factor in his NASCAR return.

“The two reasons that this opportunity came about – one is Steve Lauletta was the president at (Chip) Ganassi when I was there – and two, I raced with Mobil 1 [at] McLaren,” he noted.

“It’s great to be back with them again for all they’ve done in my career.”

Asked if he could have expected coming back to NASCAR, even for a single-race opportunity, several years ago, Montoya shook his head and chuckled.

“Honestly, the last few years I was racing P2 [single-seater prototypes] for a while. I ran WEC, ELMS, IMSA – I’ve done a bit of everything. … But when we stopped that, I really wanted to focus on Sebastian. We did F3 this year, and we are trying to figure out next year, but hopefully the plan will be F2, and that was it in my mind,” Montoya explained. “But (Steve) Lauletta called me earlier this year, around the US GP in Miami, and he asked if I would be interested in doing [a one-off start], and I said ‘Yeah, I would. I think it would be cool.’

“It is kind of funny because if you’d asked me [even] last year, I would have said, ‘No way.’ But then the idea came … and I honestly think it is pretty cool. The idea behind it is pretty cool, and the cars are really competitive – so why not? I really don’t have a reason not to do it,” he continued. “I feel like I can still do a good job. This year, I wasn’t racing full time, but I was doing a lot of karting, [running] a lot of shifter karts with my kid, and I’m still involved in racing fully.

“The way I look at it is, if the car is good, you will look good. If it’s bad, you are going to look bad. I don’t think the car is bad, but it [comes down to] if I’m comfortable in it or not. I told the guys that I would be surprised if we qualified really well – but I should qualify pretty decent. … I finished top five, I don’t know how many times in the Cup Series here, and I used to qualify 12th to 15th … so we’ll see what happens.”

Montoya’s second and final Cup Series win came at Watkins Glen in 2010, 14 years ago. He has confidence in returning to a facility where he’s had success, but also recognizes his situation is different than those competing in the playoffs for a shot at the Cup Series championship.

That doesn’t mean he’s not still going to be aggressive, however.

“Honestly, being a one-off, it is kind of irrelevant,” said Montoya of who he’s racing around. “I want to have a clean day, a good day, and try to be competitive. If someone is quicker, they are quicker – if you are quicker, you are going to try to go by. Try to keep it as simple as possible.

“But if everybody races the hell out of you, then you are going to race the hell out of everybody. I have no issue with that either.”

In reflecting on his full-time Cup Series career – which featured eight years with Chip Ganassi Racing and Cup Series victories at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway and Watkins Glen, as well as a playoff appearance and eighth-place points finish in 2009 – Montoya noted a sense of contentment in his performance.

“I thought it was pretty good honestly, for the cars that I was in and the equipment we were in,” he said. “I think in a couple of years we were not great, but we made the Chase [now playoffs], we fought for the championship … we did a lot of things with a lot less than the other teams at the time.”

And as for whether Sunday’s Go Bowling at the Glen will be his final start at NASCAR’s premier level, Montoya was coy in his response, leaving the door open at least a crack.

“Let me do this weekend and then we will see,” he said. “If someone comes to me one day and asks me if I want to do a one-off, I will probably say yes, but it’s [only] Saturday morning, so we will see.”

Montoya’s Cup Series return in the Go Bowling at the Glen is slated for Sunday, Sept. 15, with broadcast coverage at 3 p.m. ET live on USA, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.

The USA broadcast will feature radio-style commentary, with MRN’s Mike Bagley and Dillon Welch joining the traditional NBC Sports commentary crew of Rick Allen, Jeff Burton, and Steve Letarte.