Franck Montagny

Franck Montagny (born January 5, 1978) is a French motor racing driver. He is currently competing in Formula One, driving for the Super Aguri F1 team.

Early career

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 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.

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.

Formula One

Montagny returned to the Open in 2003 with Gabord Competicion, and secured his second championship title with 9 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, and Third drivers during the 2004 & 2005 season. He did an impressive one off test for Jordan as third driver during the 2005 European Grand Prix friday test, clocking a quicker time than Narain Karthikeyan and Tiago Monteiro, the official Jordan drivers.

For 2006, Super Aguri F1 took on Montagny 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 unsufficiently 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 finished 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.

Super Aguri F1 confirmed on July 12 that Franck will be replaced by Japanese driver Sakon Yamamoto after the 2006 French Grand Prix it looks like he will drive in the 3rd Car during Friday practise sessions and some people in the paddock think that he will return as race driver in 2007 when the teams need for an all-Japanese driver line up is less important.

Complete Formula One results

External Links

• [Franck Montagny Official Site]

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