“Honestly, I’m to the point I still enjoy racing, I’m still competitive,” he said. “As long as I have a drive to do it, I mean, it’s crazy because some people say you know with time you lose the drive, and this and that.”

But not Montoya. He continues to thrive on competition.

The other important part of his life these days is overseeing the development of son Sebastian’s racing career. Sebastian, who turns 16 on April 11, is in his second season of racing in Formula 4 in Europe for Italian team Prema Powertrain.

“He’s very, very quick, he’s crazy fast,” Montoya says of his son. “I think he is a lot smarter than me in a lot of ways. And I think he can race just as good as me, I think, or even better sometimes.

“You know, looking from the outside, I think he just needs a little bit of luck for things to go his way. And once things start clicking, it’ll be like a non-stop thing. I’m pretty excited. I think this year, he’s got an opportunity to make that happen. And if he takes advantage of this situation, it could be an amazing year for him.”

Like his father, the younger Montoya aspires to race one day in F1.

“His number one thing is F1, for sure,” Montoya said of his son. “Probably number two would be like IndyCar. But honestly, he wants to race. He wants to race whatever he can race on.

“He loves it and he works hard and he trains hard and he does whatever. If you tell him he needs to run 20 miles a day, that it’s going to make him quicker, he’ll go and run 20 miles a day. Last year he was very timid and I think he was a little behind everybody when we started the year, mentally and everything. He’s matured a lot. And you can see it within.”

Because of his son’s budding career, Montoya is moving the family from its longtime base in Miami, when he first came to NASCAR, to Monaco in the coming weeks.

While a smattering of grey has started to creep into his boyish mop of dark hair, the impish grin on Montoya’s face is still there. But don’t expect him to return to NASCAR in the twilight years of his racing career.

“Not to disrespect anybody and I did it for seven years, I loved it,” Montoya said. “But when you run 30 something weeks a year, you really don’t have a life. I mean, you really miss a lot of things in life that when you’re doing it, you think it’s fine. And then when you stop, you realize, ‘Oh, my God. Why?’”

When NASCAR raced last week at Homestead-Miami Speedway, as on most days, Montoya could be found riding his road bike around Miami, pedaling over 20 miles from his home toward the track. But instead of renewing acquaintances with his former NASCAR brethren, he stopped about a mile short, turned around and rode back home.

Even though it’s now at a distance, Montoya still keeps up with NASCAR.

“They’ve always been focused on trying to make a better show and they do,” he said. “The races are always close and everything.”

While other racing series were significantly impacted last season due to COVID-19, Montoya applauds how NASCAR successfully weathered the pandemic and put on a full 36-race schedule as originally planned.

“It was a huge challenge and they did a good job,” he said. “Something that I think right that came out of that is the shorter weekends. At some point, they’re going to have to do some short races … and they’re going to realize you don’t need to be doing three-and-a-half-hour races anymore.”

In addition to missing many of his former rivals, Montoya especially misses NASCAR fans.

“NASCAR fans in general, they’ve always been very good to me,” he said.

Then, he adds with a laugh, “But for some reason, I’ve always been the bad guy. … I think it was funny when I came to NASCAR, everybody was so welcoming until I started running well. It was like, ‘Yes, we want you here, but we don’t want you to win.’

“But it was good. I really enjoyed my time in NASCAR. I don’t have any regrets whatsoever. I mean, it’s a shame we didn’t do more. But I think with what we had, I did pretty damn good.”

With his 46th birthday looming in September, Montoya brushes off talk of retirement from racing anytime soon.

“Honestly, I’m at this point in my career where I’m really happy to be driving, excited to be competitive,” he said. “And that’s really what it’s always been for me. I mean, go get in the car, go fast and that’s it.”

The Juan Pablo Montoya file:
https://www.racing-reference.info/dr..._Pablo_Montoya

* Age: 45

* Hometown: Bogota, Colombia. Has lived in Miami since 2006 but will be moving shortly to Monaco.

* NASCAR Cup career: Seven full-time seasons (2007-2013) – two wins, 24 top-five and 59 top-10 finishes; also made two starts in 2014 for Roger Penske at Michigan and Brickyard 400.

* NASCAR Xfinity career: 23 starts between 2006-2008 – one win, one top-five, three top-10 finishes.

* Best NASCAR season: 2009, finished eighth in the Chase for the Cup.

Other career highlights:

CART: 40 races over two seasons (1999-2000) – won championship as rookie – 10 wins (including 7 in first season, plus 2000 Indianapolis 500), 13 podiums, 14 poles.

INDYCAR: 53 starts – 5 wins (including 2015 Indianapolis 500), 13 podiums, 1 pole – best season finish was second in 2015.

FORMULA ONE: — 94 starts – 7 wins, 30 podiums, 13 poles – best season finish was third in 2002 and 2003.

ROLEX Grand-Am Series – 8 starts (7 in Rolex 24 and 1 on Indianapolis GP road course) – 3 wins, 5 podiums, 1 pole.

IMSA – 31 starts – 3 wins, 15 podiums, 9 poles – won championship in 2019.

Pablo Montoya keeps his desire for racing competitively