Montoya expects better season

The Colombian will race the No.42 Target Chevrolet for the Earnhardt Ganassi team, which he drove for the first time this week during a Goodyear test at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

He says he is happy with what he has seen so far as the joint efforts of Dale Earnhardt Inc and Chip Ganassi Racing start yielding the first benefits.

"We were testing at Atlanta this week and I think our car was pretty fast," Montoya told autosport.com. "We're happy and we're very comfortable in making the switch to Chevrolet and now with Target on board as well it's great.

"There are many good things that we're getting out of this partnership. We're working full-time on the DEI shaker rig and we've got the Earnhardt-Childress engines that are going to help us also.

"We'll see how that goes but I think we're going to run much better than most people think."

EGR announced this week that they would field only three full-time cars during the season, rather than the four that had originally been expected when the merger was announced.

However the Colombian sees that as a positive as the team will focus most of their efforts on him and Martin Truex Jr.

"Obviously we would rather have four fully-sponsored cars than three, but we're better off running as many cars as we can afford with the sponsors we have," said Montoya. "It wouldn't be good to have four cars with not enough budget.

"Right now the main focus of the team and where we're going to put most of the effort is in the No.1 and the No.42. The team want Martin and me to be running up front and contending to be in the Chase."

Montoya is reluctant to set any clear goals for 2009, but he certainly expects to be fighting for victories. After a tough second year he hopes to rebound and believes he could be among the top 12 at the season's end.

"I think the Chase is really possible this year," he said. "What we don't want is to have to go through a tough period like we had after the first few races of last year with all the crew-chief changes and all that. I think we're going to be fine."

Montoya will be behind the wheel this weekend as part of the Ganassi team aiming for a fourth consecutive victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.