Evil_Capri

WOW . . did not see this coming. I didn't even hear any rumors prior ro this announcement today. Juan is going to Chip Ganassi Racing #42 next year.

From Indy to Monacco to Daytona . . .

codeman94

Holy Crap!

I'm a not thinking this is too smart....those F1 guys always suck in IROC

kevinspann

It isnt too smart at all, why leave F1 for Nascar? Its a huge pay cut too BTW.
And the F1 guys dont even do IROC

Remember He drove for Ganassi in CART

I found an article from 2000 where Montoya says that he wants to do F1 , and maybe try NASCAR when he older. Does his guy know what he wants to do or what? He predicted his own future 6 years ago!

http://espn.go.com/auto/indy00/s/2000/0531/559969.html

codeman94

oh...my bad...I thought Micheal Schumaker did it once...

f1-cobra

All I can say is, I hope Chip has a lot of spare body parts for the car.

They cut into the Grand-Am race to show the press conference, thanks Nascar TV.

Cheese302

yeah thats all speed is.

but whatever, i think its great, just listen to his reason for moving over "i want to go back to racing"

finally weven the drivers agree, F1 is a big parade

Zastava_101

Stupid move for Chip Ganassi

Evil_Capri

Why?

Just goes to show how low the state of open wheel racing is in the USA. Maybe this move will strike a nerve with some in the IRL/Champ Car and 'help' them get their act together before it's too late.

But this is GREAT for NASCAR.

1) This brings a WHOLE new fan base to NASCAR.
2) Strikes another blow to the IRL/Champ Car situation.
3) Has the potential (depending on how competitive JPM will be) to open the market south of the US border even more.

Let's just say this has sparked my interest again somewhat in NASCAR when I thought I was just about done watching Nextel Cup.

f1-cobra

I've also read where a few f1 drivers that aren't sure of where they will be next year said that a move to IRL/Champ Car is a step backwards and they would rather go to Nascar. Mostly because of it's popularity in the US and because it's a completely different discipline to f1. I also have to admit that I'll be watching JPM's progress in the sport next year.

Evil_Capri

And that's why they (IRL/Champ) need to get back together! CART used to be, dare I say, 'on par' with F1. That can be debated but at the very least it was not considered a sub-par open wheel racing series as some, especially in F1, think of the two seperate series.

I will admit while I was watching the Grand-Am Cup race and SPEED broke into the press conference it took me a good 5 minutes to actually believe it was a REAL press conference. My wife was even like, WTF?!?! God I love that woman!!

DanS.02GT

I'd heard rumors that he might be back with Ganassi next year, but not in my wildest dreams did I think that it would be in Cup. He was a heckuva oval racer back when CART actually ran ovals, and in his one and only IRL start, he ran away with the Indy 500. A lot of people point out open wheel drivers like John Andretti, Chris Fittipaldi, Scooter Pruett, and Robby Gordon, who didn't exactly set the world on fire when they switched over to Nascar, but they weren't nearly as good in CART as Montoya was. Might be interesting....

f1-cobra

Juan Pablo Montoya steps down at McLaren

McLaren Mercedes confirmed this morning that the Colombian and the team have parted ways, effective immediately, with Pedro de la Rosa taking the race seat this weekend at the French Grand Prix.

Jason, James and Zoran
You'd better change this weeks picks if you had JPM. Not that any of us had him picked before anyway.

DanS.02GT

I wouldn't be too surprised to see him in a Busch car before the end of the season. Maybe in time for the Glen?

jgsmuzzy

Agreed, looks like I will be subscribing to NASN again next year!

JPM has been unsettled for a while now in F1, and as has been said earlier in this thread, the whole thing is turning into one parade after the other. I used to religiously watch all the qualifying and all the races......so far this year, I have watched only two races.

I think they should get Alex Wurtz into a Nascar. That would be funny, he would single handedly turn it into an open wheel series

pitpup

I think JPM will do fine. Interested to see what Danica Patrick would do at the Cup level.

Zastava_101

It might be good move for NASCAR, but I don't think Montoya will be better driver for Ganassi than Mears was.