Juan Pablo Montoya

Montoya then returned to Colombia to drive a Van Diemen car in the 1600cc Copa Formula Renault after series officials rejected him for being inexperienced and for being an aggressive driver until the withdrawal of one driver enabled his entry.

He took four wins and five pole positions for second in the eight-race championship.

Juan Pablo Montoya Roldán (born 20 September 1975), is a Colombian racing driver who has competed in open-wheel car, sports car and stock car racing events.

Montoya was born on the morning of 20 September 1975, in a Bogotá hospital, to middle-class parents Pablo (an architect who enjoyed motor racing and amateur go-karting) and his wife Libia Roldán de Montoya (Roldán).

He is the family's eldest child, with two younger brothers and a sister.

Montoya's grandfather Santiago worked in real estate, while his uncle Diego raced sports cars.

The family lived in the San José de Bavaria neighbourhood in Bogotá's northern outskirts.

Montoya attended the private schools Colegio Gimnasio Bilingue Campestre and later the Colegio San Tarsicio after his test scores were too low and he was a Boy Scout.

He spent four days a week on his education and three days racing by the end of his schooling.

Aged five, Montoya began kart racing when his father brought him a go-kart, taught him to drive and trained at the Kartódromo Cajica outside of Bogota.

His father mentored him, discreetly remortgaging the house without his wife's knowledge to finance his son's career or rearranging finances and obtaining sponsorship until Formula 3000 (F3000).

Montoya got funding working as a delivery boy for his father, learnt racecraft and mechanical engineering from him, and was inspired by drivers Roberto Guerrero and Ayrton Senna.

He raced in a self-organised karting championship due to the Colombian Karting Federation's financial problems.

Montoya won the 1984 Colombian Children's National Karting Championship, was second in the 1985 Colombian National Karting Championship and won the following year's local and national titles.

Montoya won numerous championships in the Kart Komet category's local and national divisions from 1987 to 1989.

He raced in the World Karting Junior Championship in 1990 and 1991, respectively.

Montoya won four national championships and finished second three times.

He began car racing in 1992, and travelled to the United States that September to attend a three-day Skip Barber Racing School at Sonoma Raceway under the tutelage of lead instructor Vic Elford.

Montoya won the eight-round Nationale Tournement Swift GTI Championship in a Suzuki Swift in 1993, winning seven races and seven poles.

He was second in the ten-race Lada Samara Cup with five wins and three pole positions and he won his class in the 1994 Karting SudAm 125 Championship.

After his father determined that his son could better himself outside of Colombia because of the country' lack of race tracks and senior championships, Montoya entered the American-based Barber Saab Pro Series in 1994 featuring normally aspirated cars, winning two races, two poles and eleven top-ten finishes for third overall with 114 points.

He also raced for the Osaka team in Mexico, finishing third overall in the local sports car prototype division and earning three wins and four pole positions in the Nissan-powered single seater Formula N support category.

In 1997 and 1998, Montoya raced in the International Formula 3000 for RSM Marko and then Super Nova Racing, winning seven races and the 1998 Drivers' Championship.

He won the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) Drivers' Championship in 1999; the Indianapolis 500 in 2000 and 2015; the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2007, 2008 and 2013 and the IMSA SportsCar Championship in 2019.

Montoya began kart racing at the age of five, and had early success before progressing to car racing in Colombia and Mexico at age 17, finishing runner-up in the Copa Formula Renault and winning the Nationale Tournement Swift GTI Championship.

He also competed in the Barber Saab Pro Series, the Formula Vauxhall Lotus Championship and the British Formula 3 Championship.

He debuted in CART in 1999 with Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR), tying Dario Franchitti on points but claimed the title because of count-back on the number of victories taken by both drivers.

During the 2000 season, Montoya's form lowered due to unreliability but still won three races for ninth in the Drivers' Championship and won the Indianapolis 500 on his first attempt.

He first drove in Formula One (F1) with the Williams team in the season and secured his maiden victory in that year's.

Montoya qualified on pole position seven times in the championship and won two races in the season that put him third in the World Drivers' Championship in both years.

He fell to fifth in the 2004 World Drivers' Championship but won the season-ending.

At the start of the season, Montoya moved to McLaren and finished fourth with three victories.

The season resulted in him leaving F1 after that year's and began competing in NASCAR for CGR in late 2006.

During his seven-year NASCAR career, Montoya won the 2007 Telcel-Motorola Mexico 200, the 2007 Toyota/Save Mart 350 and the 2010 Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at the Glen.

He qualified for the Chase for the Sprint Cup in 2009 and finished a career-high eighth in that season's points standings.

For the 2014 season, Montoya switched to the IndyCar Series with Team Penske and took one win before claiming two victories in 2015 (including the Indianapolis 500) and tying CGR's Scott Dixon in points but finishing second because of count-back on the number of wins taken by both drivers.

His final series victory came in 2016 before going part-time in 2017 onwards and making his IMSA debut at the 2017 Petit Le Mans.

Paired with Dane Cameron, Montoya qualified on pole once and was fifth in the Prototype drivers' standings before winning three races the following year to claim the series title.

Montoya has also won the 6 Hours of Bogotá three times as well as the individual event of the Race of Champions in 2017.

He fell to seventh in the 2020 season and was fourth in the FIA World Endurance Championship's LMP2 Pro-Am subcategory with DragonSpeed USA in 2021.