Newcomers praise Montoya's season

The three former open wheel drivers, which were Montoya's rivals before in Formula One and Champ Cars, have shown resepect for what Montoya has been able to achieve in his first full season in NASCAR as they try to follow on the Colombian's footsteps.

"Juan Pablo did a great rookie season, without any stock car experience," said Jacques Villeneuve at Atlanta Motor Speedway while testing NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow. "After having driven one now, it's obvious to me anyway how difficult a job it is and how good he's done."

Carpentier, who raced against Montoya in his Champ Car days, summed it up by saying that if it weren't for the Colombian, neither him nor Villeneuve or Franchitti would probably be entering the series.

"Basically he's pretty much the reason we're all sitting here today because he did so well this year," said the Gillett Evernham driver.

Dario Franchitti, who will be teammates with the Colombian in the 2008 Sprint Cup season said Montoya has eased his learning, while admitting he has done an impressive job at adapting to the heavy stock cars.

"I agree with these guys," Franchitti said. "Working in the team with Juan, you see how well he has adapted and it's been really helpful to have him on the team because I'm going through that same thing right now.

"But he's just done a terrific job this year. And again what Jacques said, having driven the car now, you realize what an impressive job he has done."

Montoya himself reckons he has enjoyed a good rookie season scoring a win and six top-ten places thus far, which is more than what he would have anticipated for this year.

"I'm pretty happy with my season," Montoya said. "I think we have achieved more than what we expected, which is good. But there have been weekends when we were probably expecting something good and it didn't happen. But that's part of racing."

The Ganassi driver, despite not being surprised with so many drivers trying to jump from open-wheel series to NASCAR, warns that the switch may not work for all those attempting it.

"It's like everything. For some it will work, and for some it won't," he added.