It’s incredible to think that a driver so inextricably linked to success in America – Juan Pablo Montoya – has only started five Indianapolis 500s.
And yet he’s won two of them.
With the news that he will race for Arrow McLaren SP in the 2021 Indy 500, that number of appearances should rise to six and fans of the no-nonsense, rapid Colombian will get to see the 45-year-old grace the Brickyard once more.
With Fernando Alonso Formula 1-bound again, it’s a much needed big name addition for the event, and with Montoya being such a natural at the venue, his return won’t just be for fun.
The Race has ranked his previous Indianapolis 500 attempts to jog your memory of his past, before we get excited about his future and another Montoya return to ‘The Greatest Spectacle in Racing’’. The last comeback wasn’t so bad, after all…
5. 2016
There’s not a whole lot to say here! Montoya could only manage the sixth row of the grid in qualifying despite Penske team-mates Will Power and Helio Castroneves making the ‘Fast Nine’ fight for pole.
In the race, he made it 64 laps before he got sideways halfway through Turn 2 and smashed into the outside wall.
He was critical of the antics of some other drivers racing too aggressively so early on in the race, but offered little explanation for the reasons behind the crash just blaming a loss of the rear end.
It was unusual to see a car lose it so soon in the corner, especially one driven by the gifted Montoya.
It was the first time Montoya had failed to finish an Indy 500 and one he will not want to remember.
4. 2017
The last Indy 500 Montoya took part in before his scheduled 2021 return, it was nothing to really write home about and was perhaps hamstrung from the beginning as it was one of only two events he did that year.
In keeping with more of his 500 attempts than not, Montoya qualified well down the order (18th) but qualifying never tells the story of the race and he finished a decent sixth.
It wasn’t really Chevrolet’s year as Honda stole a march up front, including with Alonso’s incredible debut.
Montoya didn’t have the pace of his title-contending team-mate Castroneves – at least in what turned out to be an 11-lap hurry to the flag after a caution – one of many which bunched the field.
Not a typical Montoya drive that will spring to mind when you mention ‘Indy 500’, but still one that earned a haul of points on a day where – unusually – challenging for the win didn’t appear on for the Montoya-Penske package.
3. 2014
After his Formula 1 stint from 2001-2006, Montoya spent eight years chipping away at a NASCAR career with Ganassi.
However, he shocked the motorsport world in 2014 by joining Team Penske for a part-schedule of NASCAR and a full-time return to IndyCar in a year where he would turn 39.
It was a bit of a stuttering start to life at Penske back in IndyCar after an absence of 14 years from the series, but a fourth in Long Beach pointed at potential to come.
Something about Indy has just clicked for Montoya though, and where other drivers have taken thousands of laps or years of practice to tame it, Montoya was immediately quick and at home at the Brickyard in all his tries.
As the time for his return came in 2014, he was second on the opening day of practice and qualified on the fourth row – a respectable result on his return.
In the race, he started with understeer but stuck around the back end of the top 10. He went long – leading the race twice – in the second stint and third stints, as the race went without a caution through the first half.
In the second half of the race Montoya moved into the top five where he would finish, as Ryan Hunter-Reay won one of the closest events in Indy history from Castroneves.
It was an epic display from Montoya who ran up front all day long on his much-anticipated return.
2. 2015
Some things are just meant to be. Montoya has always been a driver capable of performances at the big events on big occasions, and 15 years on from his debut Indy 500 win he fought for another.
Now fully back in the groove with a full season of IndyCar racing under his belt after returning from NASCAR, and after another Indy 500 in 2014, Montoya looked a strong prospect for the 2015 event.
Of course, in keeping with his fairytale career, the 2015 fight would be against his old employer Chip Ganassi Racing, and it was a ding-dong, race-long battle with Penske’s arch rival for victory.
The two teams led the way for the majority of the event but in the closing stages it was Montoya and Will Power (Penske) against Scott Dixon and Charlie Kimball (Ganassi), and the battle didn’t disappoint.
With three laps to go – having escaped the Ganassi pairing following an oh-so-close moment with Dixon – Montoya scorched past Power to lead, which should have left Montoya vulnerable to the tow and for Power to be able to slipstream back past at will.
Power zoomed in to challenge on the last lap, getting especially close through Turns 1 and 2, but Montoya got the better run off Turn 2 and that gave him the breathing space he needed to cross the bricks as a winner for the second time.
I can still hear his screaming on the radio. After 15 years between wins, Montoya was victorious again. He almost added the IndyCar title too before losing on a countback to Dixon.
1. 2000
The 2000 Indy 500 was phenomenal for so many reasons. After the bitter split between CART and the Indy Racing League for 1996, no top-line CART teams contested the Indy 500 until Montoya and Chip Ganassi Racing arrived to rock the boat in 2000.
Montoya was no stranger to oval racing by this point, having won the CART title at his first attempt in 1999, but Indy isn’t just any oval.
With a crew headed up by ex-NASCAR engineer Andy Graves, getting his first taste of elite single-seater racing, Ganassi unloaded on the pace as Jimmy Vasser and Montoya adapted very quickly to the new challenge.
Montoya backed up his immediate pace – the team left after the first day of testing in what should have been a three day event because it was so confident – with second in qualifying. That’s when the rest of the field knew he needed to be taken seriously.
Ganassi led 172 of the 200 laps with Montoya the star of the show netting over 160 of those. Vasser was a victim of running an alternate strategy and had to pit late on, but Montoya was the quicker of the pairing across the month of May.
It was a dominant performance that opened the door to more CART teams making the step – like Penske the following year – and was the first prong of the Triple Crown for Montoya before he headed off to Formula 1 where he would add the Monaco Grand Prix to his CV.
There’s little to choose between how impressive 2015 was versus 2000, but in the millennium year he was yet to achieve the great things he would in the future, and did something usually so difficult in adapting immediately to Indy – and was part of an entry that had a seismic impact on the course of the US single-seater war. That gives 2000 the nod despite a scintillating 2015 comeback against a deeper field.
