When Juan Pablo Montoya said he wanted to be racing behind the wheel of a championship car, he didn’t limit himself to which series he’d be in. Those words are playing true as reports released this week show Montoya driving for Michael Andretti next season.
John Lopes, the senior VP and cheif marketing officer, told Racer.com that they have 50 percent of the sponsorship that they need to put Montoya in a car.
“There has been a lot of interest in him, and with his success in Indy car racing – winning the 2000 Indy 500, his wins in F1, and everything he’s done in NASCAR, companies sit up and take notice if you have a chance to work with him,” Lopes added.
It was released back in August that Montoya and Andretti had meetings together to discuss the possibility of teaming up in 2014.
“There are two particular sponsors that are definitely interested because of Juan, and if either were to happen, it would only be because of Juan,” Michael Andretti told RACER this wee. “I would say there’s a couple of scenarios that if a deal happens, it would be because of him. I wouldn’t see them doing anything with anyone else but Juan.”
Andretti Autosport drivers Marco Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay are locked into contracts for next season. However, three-time race winner James Hinchcliffe and E.J. Viso have yet to resign with AA yet.
One of the things holding on the resigning of Hinchcliffe is resigning sponsor Go Daddy. However, all indications in August were that Go Daddy was happy with Hinchcliffe and how things were going.
“First of all, James is a guy who personifies small business: Somebody who had an idea, knew what they wanted to do and put their heart and soul into it and then built a career out of a passion and that’s exactly the same thing small businesses do,” Go Daddy executive Blake Irving told The Globe and Mail.
“From my perspective he personifies everything that our customers identify with and the guy is a wonderful spokesman, he very human, has got a great sense of humour, represents our company the way that we like to be represented which is funny, irreverent, we get things done quickly and we have a lot of passion for what we do.”
However, Hinchcliffe may be leaving AA to drive a fourth car for Chip Ganassi as a teammate to Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon and Charlie Kimball.
With regards to E.J. Viso, there has not been any discussion towards next year.
On top of this, Carlos Munoz is a development driver for AA, running in the Firestone Indy Lights ranks and winning. Munoz has made a couple starts in the IZOD IndyCar Series, including a top five in the Indianapolis 500 in May.
IndyCar does have a limit on how many drivers a team can run, however is six cars really possible under one team? Something has to give and it’ll be interesting to see what happens as we move forward.
