Juan Pablo Montoya is a Colombian racing driver currently competing in the Verizon IndyCar Series driving for Team Penske. He reigned as the Colombian National Carting Champion from 1981–84, and by 1992 he was winning Colombian Formula Renault races. Named CART Champion in 1999, Montoya went on to win the Indianapolis 500 in 2000. He joined the Formula One circuit in 2001 before switching to NASCAR in 2007. After returning to open-wheel racing for the 2014 season, he notched a second Indianapolis 500 win in 2015.

Montoya’s professional racing career began in Colombia in the Formula Renault Series and moved on to Formula 3000.

After he finished second in the 1997 Formula 3000 season, he was signed to a multi-year contract beginning in 1998 with the Williams-BMW racing team. In 1999, Montoya was named CART Champion and Rookie of the Year. The following year, Montoya "crossed over" to compete in the famed Indianapolis 500. Despite skepticism from the racing world, Montoya raced to an easy victory, becoming the first Colombian to win in Indianapolis. In 2001, Juan Pablo Montoya began racing on the Formula One circuit, before switching to NASCAR six years later.

In 2007, he won the NASCAR Busch Series Telcel-Motorola 200 in Mexico City. He also became the first foreign-born driver to win a Cup race since 1974 when he was victorious at NASCAR Nextel Cup race at the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma. This win made him only the second racer, after Mario Andretti, to win the Indianapolis 500, a Formula One race and a NASCAR Nextel Cup race. Montoya also won the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona in both 2007 and 2008 and added another Cup Series win at Watkins Glen in 2010.

In 2013, Montoya leaped at the chance to return to IndyCar racing as a member of Team Penske. He notched a second Indianapolis 500 victory in May 2015 but wound up finishing a close second to Scott Dixon for the overall championship. The following year, he began the season with a win at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Most recently, in 2017, Montoya won the Race of Champions and set a world record for going from 0-249-0 in just 32.6 seconds with a Bugatti Chiron.

Motorsports, Latin America, Hispanic Heritage, Sports Sports Industry, Race Car Driver,