Following Sunday’s news that Juan Pablo Montoya was leaving Formula 1 and heading to NASCAR next year, McLaren announced today that they had mutually decided that Montoya should sit-out the remainder of this season’s races.
Montoya’s seat will be taken by Pedro de la Rosa who previously drove for Arrows (1999-2000) and Jaguar (2001-2002) before becoming a test driver for McLaren. In his only prior drive for McLaren, de la Rosa finished 5th in the 2005 Bahrain Grand Prix while filling in for Montoya during his infamous “tennis” injury.
Various reasons were given for this decision including letting Montoya prepare for his new challenge and the fact that his wife Connie is expecting their second child in September.
Chip Ganassi had already expressed an interest in getting Montoya into a few Nextel Cup races at the end of this year after the Formula 1 season ends so perhaps this will now be a possibility sooner than they had anticipated. Montoya will be driving a Dodge next year and parent company DaimlerChrysler also owns Mercedes so maybe there was a certain amount of strategy in play?