Montoya takes maiden win at Infineon

The odds were against the former Formula One star and his team to be able to win a race for which they had been tipped as the favorite by their rivals.

However a good strategy, some good and clean overtaking manoeuvres, and a light right foot from Montoya in the closing laps of the race gave Chip Ganassi Racing their first win in more than four years.

"I can't even believe," Montoya said. "It's been an amazing day for the whole team. We had a fast car, just looked after it all day long, the strategy worked good, great pitstops and just had everything fall into place, you know. One of those days when you're meant to win you're going to win, whatever happens."

Montoya knew before the race that he could run as much as 40 laps with a full tank of fuel. However, his second stop for tyres and fuel came a bit ahead of plan, under caution on lap 69 and with 41 laps still remaining. A caution flag would have made things easier for him in the end, but the race carried on under green all the way to the chequered flag.

"They told me it was going to be close," Montoya added. "I mean, you always drive very careful with the throttle, letting the car roll and I thought 'I'm going to be good, it's going to close.' I'm thinking 'I don't want to get to the end and get second', you know. So I drove a bit harder, went by Jamie and then started saving a bit more fuel."

It wasn't all fuel saving for Montoya though. He had to recover all the way from his low starting position overtaking at some uncommon places on the track, moving up to 12th before completing his first pit stop of the day on lap 36.

His aggressive style was challenged by some of the top Cup drivers like Jimmie Johnson, who almost forced him off the track on turn 3, and Kevin Harvick who did the same when the Colombian tried to overtake him on the outside of turn two.

After being on the receiving end a couple of times, he then spun Kurt Busch on turn 11 but apologized to him publicly after the race for the move.

Once everybody had completed their last planned stops of the day for fuel, the Ganassi driver found himself third. With 18 laps remaining he took second from Kevin Harvick, who made things easy for Montoya, hoping he would run out of fuel a few laps short from the end of the 110 scheduled laps.

"They came on the radio and told me, you have 20 laps to make up one lap of fuel and both cars in front of you are three laps short," Harvick said.

"So I let [Montoya] go and figured they were both going to run out of gas and I just needed to stay in front of [Carl Edwards] is what they told me on the radio. You know, that's how we played it, and he didn't run out of gas."

After putting himself second, Montoya then started to gain on race leader Jamie McMurray who was on the same strategy. He came under attack from the No. 42 Dodge with nine laps to go at the turn 11 hairpin, but Montoya did not succeed at taking the lead after overshooting his braking while trying to stop his car on the dirtier inside part of the track.

But with seven laps to go, Montoya went on the inside of the Roush Fenway driver on turn 2, a right hander with negative camber on the entry, easily getting past and then pulling away to build a solid lead.

With four laps to go, he outbraked himself going into turn 11 and nearly lost the lead, but was able to fend off McMurray for the last time before the Ford Fusion ran out of fuel with two laps to go. Harvick inherited second place as a consequence.

From then on, Montoya's battle was with his right foot to run his car as lean as possible in the last few miles of the race.

"In the last lap I rolled a lot," Montoya said. "I went through the first few corners and I'm just looking at the yellow light, 'don't come on'. We have a yellow light for low fuel; when that happens I've got about ten seconds of fuel."

As Montoya cruised to get Dodge's first victory of the year, Harvick came behind him in second as the other Richard Childress cars followed, with Jeff Burton finishing third and Clint Bowyer taking fourth. Greg Biffle rounded up the top five as the top Ford Fusion of the day.

Another Ford driver, Robby Gordon, led close to half of the race staying up front for 48 laps, but chose the wrong strategy as he pitted on lap 76 under green, losing any chance of victory and eventually finishing 16th.

"It's just disappointing that fuel strategy makes a difference of a race win or not," Gordon said. "I don't know. It's disappointing that we had a car as fast as we had, started on the front row, and not just get beat, but finish 16th. We've really got to look deep into this one and figure out how we can prevent it before we go to Watkins Glen."

Jeff Gordon recovered from his 41st starting position to claim a good seventh place behind Tony Stewart. The Nextel Cup points leader ran as high as third and pitted several times in the early part of the race trying to get himself set for the best possible strategy, although he was forced to stop under green on lap 76 to take a splash of fuel.

"We played the strategy the best way we possibly could." Gordon said. "We had some cautions fall our way, which was some good fortune for us to gain some spots. Those guys were able to make it all the way; we just weren't and had to come in for a splash and go. It was fun to be up there, to come from the back. I tell you what, it was tough."

Kyle Busch, Boris Said and Denny Hamlin rounded up the top ten, while Jimmie Johnson finished 17th. Jamie McMurray was a disheartening 37th place and one lap down on Montoya after being close to his second Nextel Cup victory, the first ironically being Ganassi's most recent victory before today.

Jeff Gordon continues to lead the points standings but will be waiting to hear from NASCAR on Tuesday as a points penalty is expected for him and Jimmie Johnson after their infractions during the opening-day inspection. Hamlin is second, 271 points behind Gordon, while Jimmie Johnson is third.

Despite his victory, Montoya moves up only two places in the standings to 21st, 982 points behind Gordon.

Pos  Driver                Car              Laps
 1.  Juan Montoya          Dodge             110
 2.  Kevin Harvick         Chevrolet         110
 3.  Jeff Burton           Chevrolet         110
 4.  Clint Bowyer          Chevrolet         110
 5.  Greg Biffle           Ford              110
 6.  Tony Stewart          Chevrolet         110
 7.  Jeff Gordon           Chevrolet         110
 8.  Kyle Busch            Chevrolet         110
 9.  Boris Said            Ford              110
10.  Denny Hamlin          Chevrolet         110
11.  Ricky Rudd            Ford              110
12.  P.J. Jones            Toyota            110
13.  Dale Earnhardt Jr     Chevrolet         110
14.  Elliott Sadler        Dodge             110
15.  Ron Fellows           Chevrolet         110
16.  Robby Gordon          Ford              110
17.  Jimmie Johnson        Chevrolet         110
18.  Carl Edwards          Ford              110
19.  Bill Elliott          Ford              110
20.  Ryan Newman           Dodge             110
21.  J.J. Yeley            Chevrolet         110
22.  Kurt Busch            Dodge             110
23.  Kasey Kahne           Dodge             110
24.  Martin Truex Jr       Chevrolet         110
25.  David Gilliland       Ford              110
26.  Dale Jarrett          Toyota            110
27.  Casey Mears           Chevrolet         110
28.  Butch Leitzinger      Toyota            110
29.  David Ragan           Ford              110
30.  Regan Smith           Chevrolet         110
31.  Johnny Sauter         Chevrolet         110
32.  David Stremme         Dodge             110
33.  Bobby Labonte         Dodge             109
34.  Matt Kenseth          Ford              109
35.  Terry Labonte         Toyota            109
36.  Marc Goossens         Toyota            109
37.  Jamie McMurray        Ford              109
38.  Joe Nemechek          Chevrolet         109
39.  Kyle Petty            Dodge             108
40.  Reed Sorenson         Dodge             105
41.  Dave Blaney           Toyota             97
42.  Jeff Green            Chevrolet          68
43.  Sterling Marlin       Chevrolet          12