McLaren ready to release JPM-with no further pay (merged)

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - McLaren say they are willing to release Juan Pablo Montoya from his Formula One contract providing they do not have to keep paying his salary to the end of the year.

The Colombian has not raced for the team since he surpisingly announced in July he was moving to the U.S.-based NASCAR series in 2007.

Montoya will be driving a Dodge, a brand owned by DaimlerChrysler who also have a 40 percent stake in McLaren through Mercedes, for the Ganassi team and wants to be able to test for them.

"There are obviously some requests coming in from Chrysler," McLaren boss Ron Dennis told reporters at the Turkish Grand Prix on Saturday.

This sounds fair IMO. I hope we can see JPM race next month! :cool:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=sportsNews&storyID=2006-08-26T164652Z_01_L26064310_RTRUKOC_0_US-MOTOR-RACING-PRIX-MONTOYA.xml&archived=False

Ron Dennis has announced that he is willing to allow Montoya to begin his NASCAR career, but not while Mclaren-Mercedes is paying Montoya. Seems reasonable enough. Must be other factors involved, or this would not be dragging out like this.

http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=37136&PO=37136

Admin: There is already a thread on this in NASCAR. A chance to broaden your horizons and follow this NASCAR driver... :beer:

Sounds absolutely fair enough to me.

Now let's get on with the racing please!

[QUOTE=knowlesy]Sounds absolutely fair enough to me. QUOTE]

Exactly what I said. :)

Latest:

While Montoya apparently cannot do any official testing until his McLaren contract ends on Oct. 22 - unless DaimlerChrysler executives can resolve things - some people in the NASCAR garage say they wouldn't be surprised if Montoya is already testing a stock car somewhere anonymously, given the long learning curve ahead.

Depending on how swiftly Montoya can make the transition, he could run in either the Memphis Busch race on Oct. 28 or the Atlanta Nextel Cup race on Oct. 29. He would also be free to run at Texas, Phoenix and Homestead.

From the link in the Unser Jr. thread.

I think he will run all of the races mentioned in both Busch and Cup. He really needs to build his experience up before next year.

J.D.