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Juan Pablo Montoya

Age: 34
Height: 5' 6"

Birth Place: Bogota, Colombia
Born: Sep. 20th, 1975

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Juan Pablo Montoya's Main TV Roles

Show	Character(s)
NASCAR in Primetime	Juan Pablo Mo&hellip

NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at IMDB

BIOGRAPHY:

Juan Pablo Montoya has one brother and one sister. His father, Pablo Montoya was the one who pushed him to race and has always been his chief supporter. Juan's racing career began at the age of five when he started driving go-karts. He rapidly won his first race and the National Kart Championship in the children's division. In 1986 he was the Kart Champion in the national and local junior division. The 90s saw Juan's career move to an international level, by competing in the Kart Junior World Championship twice (1990, 1991); competing in the Barber Saab Championship, where he finished third (1994); the British Vauxhall Championship, third again (1995); the Marlboro Masters in Zandvoort, Netherlands, fourth and two wins in the British Formula 3 (1996). He also competed in Mexico (1994), Colombia (1992, '95,'96) and in the ITC Race at Silverstone, U.K (1996). 1997 was the beginning of his international fame as a racing pilot because he finished second in the FIA International F3000, behind Ricardo Zonta, and by having a test drive role in the Williams F1 team, joining World Champion Jacques Villeneuve and Heinz-Harald Frentzen. In 1998, he concentrated fully on his formula 3000 assault as he had joined a new team, Super Nova, and managed to take the title after a good, season long tussle with Nick Heidfeld. In 1999 he was supposed to have a full season seat at the Williams team, but they decided to "lend" him to the Target/Chip Ganassi Racing team, where he had an impressive season by winning the Rookie of the Year, and the CART Championship after 7 wins, 7 poles and a hard battle against Scottish driver Dario Franchitti. He continued in CART during 2000, but engine and chassis changes brought a lot of technical problems. However he won 3 races and had 7 pole positions. Besides he took a highly acclaimed motor racing prize: the Indianapolis 500, on his first attempt. Finally he had his Formula 1 race debut in 2001 in the Williams team, having an strong partner, Ralf Schumacher. At the beginning of the season he experienced a lot of technical problems but finished his first F1 race in second position at the Grand Prix of Spain. However the latter half of the year was an improvement for the Colombian, as he took 3 pole positions (Germany, Belgium and Italy) and a victory, after only 15 starts, at the Grand Prix of Italy at Monza. Besides that he finished second at Europe and Japan. He scored points in 5 races out of 6 that he finished, what gave him sixth position in the general standings at the end of the year. He also won the Overtaking Maneuver of the Year, for his move on Michael Schumacher (V) in Brazil.

TRIVIA:

He won the last race of 2004, the Brazilian GP
Juan Pablo finished fourth in the Formula 1 2005 Championship. He scored 60 points and won three races: Britain, Italy and Brazil. He also took one Pole Position at Belgium. The McLaren-Mercedes Benz team finished second in the Constructors Championship.
He left Formula One in the middle season of 2006. He said that he will join NASCAR series in 2007 and his team McLaren Mercedes decided to replace Montoya by Spanish F1 drver Pedro de la Rosa starting from French GP.
During 2007, he won the Ray Bestos Rookie Award for the Nascar Nextel Cup after finishing 20th in the general standings. He became the first Latin American driver and second non American-driver (after Canadian Earl Ross in 1974) to win a race in Nascar's top category.
He drives for the BMW-Williams team in the Formula One since 2001.
Daughter Paulina, born September 11, 2006.
In 2003 Formula One season, he won in two races (Monaco and Germany) and finished third overall in the drivers championship, behind Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) and Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren-Mercedes).
Has a brother and two sisters.