Franck Montagny

At the beginning of 2006 Franck Montagny’s career seemed to have stalled completely. The extrovert Frenchman having been discarded by Renault after two years as their reserve driver had tried unsuccessfully to break into Champ Cars and was left kicking his heels without the prospect of a regular drive. However when the Super Aguri Racing project became a reality, Frank’s undoubted testing abilities brought him a swift return to Formula 1. After merely expecting to take part in Friday testing at the European Grand Prix, Montagny then suddenly found himself promoted to a race seat when the struggling Yuchi Ide was stood down.

For Montagny, it was the reward for a decade’s hard work and his dogged refusal to quit even when a horrendous crash in Formula Renault in 1986 left him with broken vertebrae and seriously damaged legs. Only skilled work by the surgeons saved Franck’s promising racing career that had seen him gain the Rookie of the Year honours in French Formula Renault in 1995. On his return to the cockpit, Montagny showed he had lost none of his talent, taking two victories to finish runner-up overall. Graduating to French Formula 3, more race wins continued to come his way and in 1998 he appeared to be cruising to the title after an early season run of eight successive victories. However, a strong reposte by David Saelens turned the tables in the second half of the year and the pair contested a bitter championship battle which eventually went the way of the Belgian by a mere three points.

Montagny then secured a seat with the DAMS team for F3000 for 1999 and showed flashes of promise in his rookie season to finish tenth in the final points standings. Obviously hopes were high for his second season in the Formula, but only five points were mustered when he found himself up against such competitors as Junqueira, Alonso and Webber. The Frenchman was forced to take a step backward in 2001 and opted to compete in the Spanish Formula Nissan Series, and it proved to be a wise move, for he eclipsed the previous series records set by Fernando Alonso on his way to the title ahead of Tomas Scheckter. Frank’s career, now back on an upward curve, saw him promoted to the Telefónica World Series by Nissan. He did not disappoint, taking three victories on his way to third place in championship behind the much more experienced champion Ricardo Zonta. Building upon this platform in 2003 Montagny roared his way to nine victories and the title he richly deserved, giving him his big break into Formula 1 as test driver in the Renault team.

For 2004 Franck was involved in the development of the R24 and he must have been disappointed when overlooked by the Renault hierarchy after the unemployed Jacques Villeneuve was drafted into the team to replace Jarno Trulli at the tail end of the season. Montagny continued to pound round the testing tracks in 2005 as he helped fine-tune the championship winning R25, and he also made a brief appearance for Jordan-Toyota at the European GP as their Friday only driver. A rare racing outing came at Le Mans when Franck shared the fourth placed Audi R8 with Gounon and Ortelli, but his season ended in uncertainty as he was released from Renault who were placing their faith in the latest Finnish hotshot Heikki Kovalainen.

Happily for Montagny, as one door closed another opened, courtesy of Daniele Audetto of Super Aguri who was no doubt mindful of the Frenchman’s development experience when the team’s new chassis was unveiled. Following Ide’s aforementioned demotion, Franck appeared in a race seat at the European Grand Prix. He did a good enough job for the team in the SA05 car, but was eventually replaced for the balance of the season by Sakon Yamamoto who was entrusted with the pukka 2006 machine from the German Grand Prix onwards.

With Super Aguri signing up the experienced Honda tester Anthony Davidson to race for them in 2007, Montagny was quickly snapped up by Toyota as their main development driver.