Montoya bullish despite poor season

The Colombian has had one of his toughest years thus far after a promising debut in 2007 when he won a race and the Rookie of the Year honours, and was Ganassi's highest finisher in the points standings.

This season has turned out to be full of stumbles for the 33-year-old despite a reasonably good start.

In April his team decided to switch his crew chief with the aim of helping teammate Reed Sorenson and then a few weeks later he had yet another crew chief change when Jimmy Elledge was fired from the team.

Since then, Montoya has not been able to get consistent results and a couple of top-ten placings on the two road course events show as the only highlights, besides a strong run last weekend at Talladega where he led the race and ran up front until getting caught in a multi-car wreck.

"It's been a difficult year, sure," Montoya told autosport.com. "But we won the Rolex 24 at Daytona and that was good, although it has been tough recently, yes. We've done the best we could with what we've got but I knew coming to NASCAR wasn't going to be easy and it was going to take time.

"I knew I wasn't coming to a top team but everything we're going through is part of the process of getting where we want to."

Two weeks ago Montoya had set pole position at Kansas but in yet another setback, his time was disallowed after officials found the nitrogen gas pressure on the rear shock absorbers exceeded the maximum allowed.

He laments that all the progress that his team have made recently was put into question because of the Kansas incident.

"What hurts more is not having lost pole," said Montoya. "What's tough is that we've been working so hard in the last few weeks to improve the car and we've made so much progress that it was sad to end up looking like we cheated to get a pole."

After starting 42nd at Kansas, Montoya fought his way through to move into the top 15 until his charge was hampered by handling issues. He admits he still has to find the right way to set up his car along with his crew chief in order to run consistently during races.

"It's always been different things," Montoya says about the handling problems that he often experiences.

"Sometimes it's been a bad set of tyres, sometimes it's been our set-ups. We're running the car on a knife-edge and what we're trying to do is find a broader range when we can ran the car reasonably well. Right now we're either spot on, or way off."

This season a number of former open-wheel racers who ventured into NASCAR's top series have been unable to match Montoya's numbers from his debut season.

Former Formula One world champion Jacques Villeneuve didn't even qualify for the season-opener and former Indianapolis 500 winner and IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti left halfway through the season following an injury, poor results and the closure of his team due to lack of funding.

Penske racer Sam Hornish Jr failed to qualify last week at Talladega and his car remains outside the top 35 in the owner standings while Patrick Carpentier lost his drive at GEM this week. Also AJ Allmendinger, a second-year driver like Montoya, was released by Red Bull Racing a week ago.

Next Saturday Scott Speed is expected to make his Sprint Cup debut, but Montoya warned his former Formula One colleague would find things more difficult than in the ARCA or Truck Series where he has been competing regularly.

"He's been doing well in what he's racing but when he gets to Cup it will be very different," Montoya said. "I did two ARCA races two years ago before moving up to Cup and both times I qualified in the top three and led the race. So yes, he's won in those lower series, but it's all relative."

But while his former teammate Franchitti is about to make his return to IndyCar this month after his brief and troubled career in NASCAR, Montoya says he is in the Sprint Cup for the long term.

He ruled out even making a one-off return to the Indy 500, which he won in 2000, although he doesn't fully close the door on racing there in the future.

"What for?" said Montoya about returning to IndyCar. "I'm in NASCAR, I'm happy here, I enjoy what I do and for now and I'm not thinking about going anywhere else.

"If five or ten years from now I decide to go back, then we would see, but for now I'm staying in NASCAR."

Montoya currently ranks 23rd in the Sprint Cup series standings. He will compete next weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway where he was fourth fastest, and the best Dodge runner, in testing two weeks ago.