Franck Montagny

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Franck Montagny

Nationality	French
Car #	—
Current team	Toyota
World Championship career
Races	7
World Championships	0
Wins	0
Podium finishes	0
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First race	2006 European Grand Prix


Latest race	2006 French Grand Prix
2006 Championship position	27th (0 pts)


24 Hours of Le Mans Career

Participating years	1998 - 2002, 2005 - 2006
Team(s)	Courage Compétition, DAMS, Team Oreca, Pescarolo Sport
Best Finish	2nd (2006)
Class Wins	0

Franck Montagny (born January 5, 1978) is a French motor racing driver. He is currently in Formula One, serving as third driver for the Toyota F1 team after briefly racing for the Super Aguri F1 team in 2006.

1 Early career
2 Formula 3 breakthrough
3 Formula 3000 and World Sportscars
4 Formula One
5 Complete Formula One results
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Early career

Montagny was born in Feurs, France and started racing karts there in 1988, winning the cadet class in the French Karting Championship in 1992, and the National 1 class the following year.

He made his debut in cars in 1994, aged 16, promptly winning the French Renault Campus championship. The next two years were spent in Formula Renault, with finishes in fourth (the highest-finishing rookie that year) and sixth (despite missing half the season with multiple fractures obtained in an accident at Le Mans) respectively, before transferring up to French Formula Three in 1997 with the La Filière Martini team, debuting with another fourth place championship finish.

[edit] Formula 3 breakthrough

Montagny had a breakthrough year in Formula Three in 1998, including a pole position at the Spa-Francorchamps race ahead of much more experienced drivers including Mark Webber, Luciano Burti, Enrique Bernoldi and Peter Dumbreck. He repeated the feat in the Zandvoort Masters in Holland later that year, beating then German Formula Three champion Nick Heidfeld. He consistently outpaced long-time team-mate Sébastien Bourdais and ended the season with 10 wins from 22 races, including 12 pole positions, finishing the championship as runner-up behind David Saelens.

[edit] Formula 3000 and World Sportscars

Montagny moved up to Formula 3000 in 1999, driving for the DAMS team which was falling from its peak by then. One podium finish at the Hungaroring was his main success; he totalled only 6 points and tenth place that season. He however ended the year with success in the Elf Masters Karting at Paris-Bercy.

A repeat of his unsuccessful year in Formula 3000 prompted a move to World Series by Nissan in 2001, signing for the Epsilon by Graff team. He won 8 races out of a possible 16, and beat Tomas Scheckter to the championship. He changed teams for 2002 to Racing Engineering, but was beaten into second place in the championship by Ricardo Zonta. He supplemented this with a sixth place finish for Oreca at the Le Mans 24 hours.

[edit] Formula One

[edit] Renault and Jordan

Montagny returned to the World Series by Nissan in 2003 with Gabord Competicion, and secured his second championship title with nine victories, ahead of Heikki Kovalainen and Justin Wilson. This performance earned him a test with the Renault Formula One team, in which he impressed sufficiently to earn a contract as a test driver in 2003, moving up to become third driver during the 2004 & 2005 seasons. He did an impressive one-off for Jordan as third driver on the Friday of the 2005 European Grand Prix, clocking a quicker time than Narain Karthikeyan and Tiago Monteiro, the official Jordan drivers.

[edit] Super Aguri

Montagny driving for Super Aguri at the 2006 French Grand Prix.

Montagny driving for Pescarolo during practice for the 2006 24 Hours of Le Mans.

For 2006, Super Aguri took Montagny on as third driver; however, he was promoted to full race driver in May after it was announced that Yuji Ide was to drop back into testing; Ide was demoted at the behest of the governing body who considered him insufficiently experienced for Formula One. Montagny hence competed in his first Grand Prix, the 2006 European Grand Prix on May 7, qualifying last and retiring with a hydraulics problem. He did not finish his second race 2006 Spanish Grand Prix: After a great start, enabling him to gain 3 positions, he retired on lap 10 with a mechanical failure. It was third time lucky for him at the Monaco Grand Prix, when he finished the 78-lap race in 16th place, three laps behind the leader.

During the break between the British Grand Prix and the Canadian Grand Prix, Montagny was able to participate in the Le Mans 24 Hours, finishing second for Pescarolo Sport behind only the dominating Audi factory R10s. He was the first active Formula One driver to also participate at Le Mans in the same year since Bertrand Gachot in 1994.

On July 12, Super Aguri announced that Sakon Yamamoto would replace him from the German Grand Prix onwards. Montagny did not appear in his role as third driver for the next two weekends as only two Super Aguri SA06s were available but a third chassis was prepared during the summer break enabling him to reprise this role at the Turkish Grand Prix.

[edit] Toyota

Montagny tested for Toyota F1 in September 2006 at Silverstone. A month later, Toyota confirmed that he would join the team as test driver for the 2007 season, as Olivier Panis and Ricardo Zonta were leaving the team.

[edit] Complete Formula One results

(key)

Yr	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	WDC	Points
2003	Renault F1 Team	Renault R23	Renault V10	AUS	MAL	BRA	SMR	ESP	AUT	MON	CAN	EUR	FRA TD	GBR	GER	HUN	ITA	USA	JPN				-	-
2005	Jordan Grand Prix	Jordan EJ15	Toyota V10	AUS	MAL	BHR	SMR	ESP	MON	EUR TD	CAN	USA	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	TUR	ITA	BEL	BRA	JPN	CHN	-	-
2006	Super Aguri F1	Super Aguri SA05	Honda V8	BHR	MAL	AUS	SMR	EUR Ret	ESP Ret	MON 16	GBR 18	CAN Ret	USA Ret	FRA 16	GER	HUN							27th	0
2006	Super Aguri F1	Super Aguri SA06	Honda V8														TUR TD	ITA TD	CHN TD	JPN TD	BRA TD		27th	0