Montoya differs in Ganassi's low assessment of team performance
April 8, 2008
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -His car owner issued a scathing progress report of their entire NASCAR operation, but Juan Pablo Montoya doesn't think problems at Chip Ganassi Racing are as severe as the boss indicated.
Ganassi ripped into his three-car operation last weekend after Dario Franchitti's No. 40 team failed to qualify for Sunday's race at Texas Motor Speedway. It led Ganassi to criticize all three of his teams with a veiled threat that changes may be coming.
But Montoya, the star driver of the team, said although his No. 42 is ranked just 19th in the standings, the situation is actually better than it was this time last season.
``On average we are running a lot better than last year,'' he insisted. ``If you look at last year, we were running 20th every week. Something we don't have this year is one or two really good weekends. We just don't have them yet. But we've been much better in average, much closer to top 10. We just don't have any top 10s yet, and from that point of view, it's been tough.''
Through seven races this season, Montoya has five finishes of 19th or better and a season-low of 32nd in Daytona.
Still, the overall performance at Ganassi is down. It hit a low point when Franchitti failed to make Sunday's race - opening the door for Ganassi to rip his teams.
``Frankly, there are 46 cars there and if you can't beat three of them, that's pretty pathetic,'' Ganassi said. ``I certainly have all the faith in the world in (Franchitti's) driving abilities. I don't think it's that. The fact of the matter is, we didn't give him a car that was capable of doing it.''
Ganassi also criticized Reed Sorenson's team, and accused all three of his crews of not working together.
``You can't have guys that are fast and guys that are slow. It doesn't make any sense. These guys, these teams are not talking to each other, they are not working together, they are not using all the resources that are available to them. That's how you end up in a fix like this.''
Montoya, however, disputed the severity of it and said Ganassi's rant was based on his frustration level.
``You've got to understand the level of frustration he is going through,'' Montoya said. ``Everybody on the team is working really hard to make sure we have the best equipment we can, and we've got to do the best we can with it. And for one reason or another, the 40 didn't make the race and it was disappointing.
``It's tough. You look at practice performances against where we qualify, and sometimes as a team, it's disappointing because we should have been a lot better.''
But Montoya said he's been working well with Sorenson, and the two are trying to get Franchitti on the same page.
``With Reed, the meetings go a lot better, we understand each other a lot better, but Dario just wants something totally different out of the cars right now,'' he said. ``He's very uncomfortable when the car moves, but it's hard. You can always complain about the rear moving, the rear moving, the rear moving - and it's taking him more time to understand that the rear is going to move.
``He's got to learn how to deal with it.''
Ganassi held a team meeting Monday morning, and seemed convinced improvement is right around the corner. So did Montoya, who is confident Franchitti's crew will put forth a strong effort in Phoenix this weekend.
``Dario was disappointed and in a weird way, I think as bad as it was, it's a good thing because they know now how bad it feels to go home and I guarantee you after going home they are going to work so much harder to make sure it doesn't happen again,'' Montoya said.