28 Facts About Franck Montagny

Franck Montagny was born on 5 January 1978 and is a French former racing driver.

Franck Montagny briefly raced for the Super Aguri Formula One team in 2006.

Franck Montagny made his debut in cars in 1994, aged 16, promptly winning the French Renault Campus championship.

Franck 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.

Franck Montagny repeated the feat in the Zandvoort Masters in the Netherlands later that year, beating then German Formula Three champion Nick Heidfeld.

Franck Montagny consistently outpaced long-time teammate Sebastien Bourdais and ended the season with 10 wins from 22 races, including 12 pole positions, finishing the championship as runner-up behind David Saelens.

Franck Montagny moved up to Formula 3000 in 1999, driving for the DAMS team which was falling from its peak by then.

Franck Montagny however ended the year with success in the Elf Masters Karting at Paris-Bercy.

Franck Montagny won 8 races out of a possible 16, and beat Tomas Scheckter to the championship.

Franck Montagny changed teams for 2002 to Racing Engineering, but was beaten into second place in the championship by Ricardo Zonta.

Franck Montagny supplemented this with a sixth-place finish for Oreca at the Le Mans 24 hours.

Franck 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.

Franck Montagny 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, Franck Montagny became the chief test and development driver for the new GP2 Series, which would be powered by Renault engines.

Franck 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.

Franck Montagny hence competed in his first Grand Prix, the 2006 European Grand Prix on 7 May, qualifying last and retiring with a hydraulics problem.

Franck Montagny 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.

Franck Montagny was the first active Formula One driver to participate at Le Mans in the same year since Mark Blundell in 1995.

Franck 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.

Franck Montagny tested for Toyota F1 in September 2006 at Silverstone.

Franck Montagny was still interested in gaining a drive in F1, and had been linked with the Renault F1 team for the 2010 season, but Renault signed Vitaly Petrov.

Franck Montagny competed in the final Champ Car World Series race, held at the Long Beach circuit on April 20,2008.

Franck Montagny finished second in his first appearance in a race in the United States, five seconds behind Australian Will Power.

Franck Montagny made 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.

Franck Montagny made his IndyCar Series debut in 2009 at the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma at Infineon Raceway with Andretti Green Racing.

Franck Montagny has signed up to drive the Girondins de Bordeaux entry in the Superleague Formula for the 2010 season.

Franck Montagny raced for the team in Beijing and Putrajaya, scoring a podium in Beijing and scoring 18 points overall in the two races.

In March 2015, Franck Montagny was given a two-year ban from racing, and was disqualified from the Putrajaya race, in which he initially placed fifteenth.