Juan Pablo Montoya Returns to NASCAR

JPM Returns to NASCAR in 2014

By Richard Tix

Juan Pablo returns! It feels like yesterday, well it practically was, when Juan Pablo Montoya was racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. Last year Gannassi and JPM cut ties leaving Juan out of a NASCAR Cup ride. Instead of trying to catch on with a smaller Cup team Juan moved onto the Verizon Indycar Series with Team Penske.

Montoya moved back to open wheel after 7 season's in NASCAR. JPM had 2 career wins and 24 top 5 finishes in that time frame but never could win the Brickyard after finishing second once. Well, in 2014, Juan will get another shot. Today it was officially announced that he would be driving the #12 Team Penske car at the Brickyard and the June Michigan International Speedway race (Quicken Loans 400). 

Juan Pablo Montoya will look to do something no other driver has done, and that is win at IMS in Indycar and NASCAR. Not only will he be trying for a win, but Roger Penske is also using this as a strategic move to also get a win at IMS. "It has been a good start to the season with Team Penske in the Verizon IndyCar Series and it will be fun to get back behind the wheel of the Cup car," Montoya said in a team release. "It's hard to believe, but Roger Penske has never won the Brickyard 400. I think that Brad, Joey and I will give Roger and Team Penske a great opportunity to check that off the list and we should be strong at Michigan as well."

Juan Pablo will be running the #12 Penske Ford sponsored by SKF at MIS, but the sponsor for IMS will be named at a later date. Team Penske will have Greg Erwin as JPM Crew Cheif of the #12 this season. The rumors came out Tuesday 4/29 that Montoya would be returning to NASCAR and it got Twitter going. But it wasn't until today that it became official.

What I think is interesting is that Team Penske did not say he will be driving at either road course this season in NASCAR. I thought it would be a smart move to bring back the open wheel driver to Sonoma or Watkins Glenn but as of now he will just be running at IMS and MIS.

The #12 Ford will also be running May at Kansas and Oct at Talladega. For those races Ryan Blaney will be attempting to qualify with Erwin also the CC. It will be interesting to see JPM back in NASCAR especially since he might have a shot at IMS. I still believe Team Penske should look at fielding the #12 car at both road courses during the season with JPM driving, but hey my name isn't Roger Penske.

More on Juan Pablo:

• Fox Sports JPM Story
• Juan Pablo to Run Brickyard- ESPN
• JPM to Run Sprint Cup Races for Penske- Sporting News