Montoya is not worried about crew chief switch

Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS

Juan Pablo Montoya said Friday a crew chief change should not hurt his chances to finally win a NASCAR race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Team owner Chip Ganassi last week replaced crew chief Brian Pattie with Jim Pohlman, who takes over the No. 42 Chevrolet this weekend on an interim basis. The timing seemed strange to many because Montoya has dominated the last two races at the Brickyard, only to have late mistakes cost him the wins.

But Montoya said it doesn’t matter when a crew chief change is made.

“Everybody says this isn’t a good place to make a change — I think it’s as good as any,” Montoya said. “What do you do? Do you go to a track where you run bad to make it OK [to make the change]? What’s the right place to do it? What’s the wrong place to do it?”

Montoya made the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship in 2009, but was a disappointing 17th in points last season. This year has also been a bust — Montoya has just six top-10 finishes through 19 races and is 17th in the standings. He had poor finishes the last two races, at Kentucky where he was confused as to where to line up on a late restart, and at New Hampshire, where he ran out of gas in the final laps.

Although he said his relationship with Pattie was still good, Ganassi called Montoya while he was on vacation last week in his native Colombia to inform the driver he was making the move.

“Chip wanted to make some changes. He wanted to go in a different direction and he asked me. ‘Are you OK that I want to go in a different direction,”’ Montoya said. “I said. ‘Look I race for you and I support you 100 percent.”’

Pohlman takes over during a favorable portion of the schedule for Montoya. He should have won the last two races at Indianapolis, is typically competitive at Pocono and is the defending race winner at Watkins Glen. If Montoya can win even one of the next three races, he could suddenly find himself in contention for one of the two wild card slots in the 12-driver Chase field.

“Everybody is pumped up,” Montoya said. “He’s very open-minded, he really wants to get the job done. But it’s fun, you have somebody so pumped to get the job done and it’s what it takes.”

It’s a critical time for Montoya, who is in the final year of his contract with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing but is likely to finish the final details on an extension soon. But he’s not making many friends on the track of late, and currently has five-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson on the growing list of drivers who are annoyed with him.

The two had an earlier on-track incident at Darlington and after more contact at New Hampshire two weeks ago, Johnson said he was tired of hearing Montoya’s apologies. He reiterated that Friday.

Montoya will need to be smart Sunday if he’s got any chance to add a Brickyard victory to his 2000 Indianapolis 500 win.