Franck Montagny

Andretti's 2-race day a disappointment

New York Post - Found Jul. 12, 2008
By the time he handed the car over at 3:10 p.m. EDT to Franck Montagny, Andretti was running eighth, a lap off the pace, after 73 laps.
Andretti tries for 2-race day - WBZ News Radio 1030
Marco Andretti's attempt to drive in two races in one day doesn't go ... - 790 CIGM Sudbury's News Leader
INDYCAR: Marco Andretti's long day - South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Andretti crashes on lap 3 - Tennessean
Explore All

790 CIGM Sudbury's News Leader

Posted on July 12, 2008, 10:42 am

Return to sports cars could be in Franchitti's future

USA Today - Found Jul. 2, 2008
Franck Montagny was signed as the car's primary driver for the rest of the season, but the team was planning to use a variety of substitutes...

Posted on July 2, 2008, 3:31 am

ALMS: Andretti Green Racing signs Franck Montagny

Auto123.com - Found Jun. 28, 2008
Topics: honda, marco andretti, united states, racing Andretti Green Racing (AGR) announced today it has signed Franck Montagny to become the primary

Posted on June 28, 2008, 7:04 am

ALMS: Andretti Green Racing signs Franck Montagny

My Telus - Found Jun. 28, 2008
... search June 27, 2008 by Emmanuel RollandAndretti Green Racing (AGR) announced today it has signed Franck Montagny to become the primary driver...

Posted on June 28, 2008, 2:43 am

Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

USA Today - Found Apr. 20, 2008
964 mph. 2. (6) Franck Montagny, 83. 3. (10) Mario Dominguez, 83. 4. (8) Enrique Bernoldi, 83. 5. (12) Oriol Servia, 83. 6. (3) Franck Perera...

Posted on April 20, 2008, 8:28 am

Champ Car's farewell is a matter of Will Power

USA Today - Found Apr. 20, 2008
Sunday's race do not currently have rides in the IRL, but two of them, former Formula One driver Franck Montagny, in his first Champ Car start...

Posted on April 20, 2008, 8:23 am

Will Power captures last-ever Champ Car race

SI.com - Found Apr. 20, 2008
... of Long Beach do not currently have rides in the IRL, but two of them, former Formula One driver Franck Montagny, in his first Champ Car start...

Posted on April 20, 2008, 8:52 am

Champ Car's farewell is a matter of Will Power

USA Today - Found Apr. 20, 2008
Sunday's race do not currently have rides in the IRL, but two of them, former Formula One driver Franck Montagny, in his first Champ Car start...

Posted on April 20, 2008, 7:08 am

Will Power prevails in Champ Car farewell

USA Today - Found Apr. 20, 2008
... of Long Beach do not currently have rides in the IRL, but two of them, former Formula One driver Franck Montagny, in his first Champ Car start...

Posted on April 20, 2008, 4:58 am

Power takes Long Beach win in final Champ race

CBS Sportsline - Found Apr. 20, 2008
... of Long Beach do not currently have rides in the IRL, but two of them, former Formula One driver Franck Montagny, in his first Champ Car start...

Posted on April 20, 2008, 4:30 am

Franck Montagny Biography

Franck Montagny
extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia

Franck Montagny
Nationality  Flag of France French
Formula One World Championship career
Active years 2003, 2005 - 2006
Teams Renault, Jordan, Super Aguri
Races 7
Championships 0
Wins 0
Podium finishes    0
Career points 0
Pole positions 0
Fastest laps 0
First race 2006 European Grand Prix
Last race 2006 French Grand Prix
24 Hours of Le Mans career
Participating years 1998 - 2002, 2005 - 2006, 2008
Teams Courage Compétition, DAMS, Team Oreca, Pescarolo Sport, Peugeot
Best finish 2nd (2006)
Class wins 0

Franck Montagny (born January 5, 1978) is a French motor racing driver. He briefly raced for the Super Aguri Formula One team in 2006.

Contents

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.

Formula Three 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.

Formula 3000 and sports cars

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.

Formula One

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. 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.

In mid-2004, as part of his Renault F1 testing duties, Montagny became the chief test and development driver for the new GP2 Series, which would be powered by Renault engines. Montagny was the first driver to take the wheel of the car, and along with former F1 driver and ex-Renault F1 tester and Friday driver Allan McNish, divided testing duties between them , before the GP2 Series was officially launched in 2005. Much of the success of the championship and the drivability of the car has been placed on the development skills of Montagny. This was further evidenced at the start of the 2006 GP2 Series season, when Montagny was called in to test for the newly created FMS International team, to aid them and their drivers in understanding the complexities of the car, at Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Valencia, Spain, where Montagny had put in hundreds of testing laps in his time with Renault F1.

Super Aguri

Montagny driving for Super Aguri at the 2006 French Grand Prix.
Montagny driving for Super Aguri at the 2006 French Grand Prix.
Montagny driving for Pescarolo Sport during practice for the 2006 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Montagny driving for Pescarolo Sport 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.

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. After spending 2007 as a test driver, Montagny left the team after a test at the Circuit de Catalunya in November.[1] He is still interested in gaining a ride in F1.[2]

After Formula One

Montagny competed in the final Champ Car World Series race, held at the Long Beach circuit on April 19, 2008. He finished second in his first appearance in a race in the United States, five seconds behind Australian Will Power. In June, he drove the Peugeot 908 at the 2008 24 Hours of Le Mans and finished in the third place.

Montagny will make his debut in the American Le Mans Series with Andretti Green Racing at the 2008 Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park in July 2008, driving an Acura ARX-01B.[3]

Racing record

Career summary

Season Series Team Name Races Poles Wins Points Final Placing
1994 Formula Renault Campus France  ?  ?  ? 3  ? 1st
1995 Formula Renault France La Filière 14  ? 1 70 4th
1996 Formula Renault France La Filière  ?  ? 2 74 6th
1997 French Formula Three  ?  ?  ? 4 129 4th
British Formula Three La Filière 1 0 0 12 18th
Macau Grand Prix La Filière 1 0 0 N/A NC
Masters of Formula Three  ? 1 0 0 N/A 14th
1998 French Formula Three La Filière 22 12 10 226 2nd
Le Mans 24 Hours Courage Compétition (LMP1) 1 0 0 N/A 5th
Macau Grand Prix Equipe de France 1 0 0 N/A NC
Masters of Formula Three  ? 1 0 0 N/A 6th
1999 International Formula 3000 DAMS 10 0 0 6 12th
American Le Mans Series  ? (LMP) 1 0 0 0 NC
Le Mans 24 Hours DAMS (LMP) 1 0 0 N/A NC
2000 International Formula 3000 DAMS 10 0 0 5 15th
Le Mans 24 Hours DAMS (LMP900) 1 0 0 N/A 9th
2001 Open Telefónica by Nissan Epsilon by Graff 18 8 7 221 1st
Le Mans 24 Hours Oreca (LMP900) 1 0 0 N/A NC
2002 World Series by Nissan Racing Engineering 18 3 4 222 2nd
FIA Sportscar Championship Oreca (SR1) 1 0 0 15 15th
Le Mans 24 Hours Oreca (LMP900) 1 0 0 N/A 6th
2003 World Series by Nissan Gabord Competición 17 4 9 241 1st
2004 Formula One Renault Test driver
2005 Formula One Renault Test driver
Jordan
Le Mans 24 Hours Oreca (LMP1) 1 0 0 N/A 4th
2006 Formula One Super Aguri 7 0 0 0 27th
Le Mans 24 Hours Pescarolo Sport (LMP1) 1 0 0 N/A 2nd
2007 Formula One Toyota Test driver
2007-08 A1 Grand Prix France 4 0 0 118* 4th*
2008 Champ Car World Series Forsythe/Pettit Racing 1 0 0 N/A† N/A†

* Includes points scored by other Team France drivers.
† Championship merged into the IndyCar Series after one race.

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
27th 0
Super Aguri SA06 GER
HUN
TUR
TD
ITA
TD
CHN
TD
JPN
TD
BRA
TD

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Sporting positions
Preceded by
Antonio García
Open Telefónica by Nissan Champion
2001
Succeeded by
Ricardo Zonta
Preceded by
Ricardo Zonta
Superfund World Series Champion
2003
Succeeded by
Heikki Kovalainen

Franck Montagny Videos and Clips

Next

Franck Montagny video Onboard lap with Franck Montagny on Monaco circuit.
Car: Super Aguri
Year:  06 clip
Title: Franck Montagny at Monaco
Description: Onboard lap with Franck Montagny on Monaco circuit. Car: Super Aguri Year: 06
Franck Montagny video This is the 29 year old Frenchmans first season as the third driver for the Panasonic Toyota Racing team. Away from the track, Montagny enjoys kite ... clip
Title: A Peek at the Life of Race Driver Franck Montagny
Description: This is the 29 year old Frenchmans first season as the third driver for the Panasonic Toyota Racing team. Away from the track, Montagny enjoys kite ...
Franck Montagny video Franck Montagny burning out in Bilbao   Franck Montagny quemando rueda en Bilbao clip
Title: Formula 1 Renault Exhibition Exhibición Renault Formula 1
Description: Franck Montagny burning out in Bilbao Franck Montagny quemando rueda en Bilbao
Franck Montagny video The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach was a good race and a nice parade lap for the final event of the American open wheel racing series known simply a... clip
Title: Grand Prix of Long Beach 08 Podium Press Conference
Description: The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach was a good race and a nice parade lap for the final event of the American open wheel racing series known simply a...
Franck Montagny video Peugeot 908 HDi FAP design by

Chief of Design: Paolo Cantone 
Head of Aero: Guillaume Cattelani  
Chassis and Systems: Jean Marc Schmit 
Engine: Cla... clip
Title: Peugeot 908 testing for Le Mans and LMS
Description: Peugeot 908 HDi FAP design by Chief of Design: Paolo Cantone Head of Aero: Guillaume Cattelani Chassis and Systems: Jean Marc Schmit Engine: Cla...
Franck Montagny video Accidente entre Mark Webber, Christian Klien y Franck Montagny clip
Title: 06 Indianapolis Crashes at first turn
Description: Accidente entre Mark Webber, Christian Klien y Franck Montagny
Franck Montagny video Franck Montagny at Nurburgring clip
Title: Montagny at Nurburgring
Description: Franck Montagny at Nurburgring
Franck Montagny video Franck Montagny at Nurburgring clip
Title: Montagny at Nurburgring
Description: Franck Montagny at Nurburgring