Born in Feurs, France, Montagny started karting at the age of 10 and was a French national champion by the age of 14. In 1994, he moved into cars with the ‘La Filiere’ scheme and was soon impressing in the Formula Renault Championship, finishing fourth in his first season. A bad accident halted his progression briefly until he returned in 1997 to Formula 3 finishing fourth and then second the following year before moving to Formula 3000 driving for DAMS.
He then competed in World Series by Nissan winning eight races beating Tomas Scheckter to the title. Montagny changed teams for 2002 to Racing Engineering, but was beaten into second place by Ricardo Zonta. In 2003, he switched to Gabord Competicion and won the title for a second time.
By then he had been taken on as a Renault F1 test driver and he stayed in that role in 2004 and 2005. At the Nurburgring in 2005 he was the third driver for Jordan but decided to look to America in 2006 and tested with PKV Racing, before settling in the role as third driver with Super Aguri F1. When Yuji Ide had his license taken, Montagny stepped up but was replaced all too soon leaving him to sign with Toyota to be a test driver in 2007.
Since then Montagny has focused on sportscars enjoying an impressive Le Mans 24 Hour record plus IndyCar and the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Montagny said:
“It is a great honour to be racing again with Andretti Autosport and Michael Andretti. I worked a great deal with the team in 2008 and 2009, and again this year, and working together on this new electric challenge will be exciting. I am convinced that this new fully-electric technology in the automotive industry will become a very important characteristic of our day-to-day lives in the future, and this high-level racing competition will very quickly bring new technical developments just as Formula One did in the past for everyday automobiles.”
Source; FIA Formula E
