At Toyota/Save Mart 350, Juan Pablo Montoya kept his eyes on bigger prize

SONOMA, CALIF. —  Juan Pablo Montoya is among auto racing’s most daring and aggressive drivers, but even he knows that sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

The former Indianapolis 500 winner and Formula One driver switched to NASCAR stock car racing full time in 2007. It has often been a struggle, but he scored his only Sprint Cup Series win on the Infineon Raceway road course here that season.

So when the Colombian arrived for this year’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon on Sunday, expectations ran high that he could win again on the 10-turn, 1.99-mile course.

But Montoya had cautioned before the race that, given the choice between making risky moves for the win that could backfire or bringing home a top-10 finish that could move him up in the Cup championship standings, he would choose the latter.

On Sunday he stuck to the script.

With only 11 laps left, Montoya was battling Tony Stewart for second place behind leader Kasey Kahne. But rather than force the issue with Stewart, Montoya backed off.

Kahne won, Stewart was second and Montoya finished sixth.

“You always want a little more, but it’s all we got,” Montoya said. “I could have probably got a third or fourth” but the drivers ahead of him “were going too aggressive and I needed to finish.”

Montoya climbed to 12th in the Cup point standings after 16 races. The top dozen drivers in points after 26 races qualify for NASCAR’s 10-race Chase for the Cup playoff that determines the series champion.

And Montoya, 33, wants to be in the Chase.

“I can’t really complain,” he said after climbing out of his red No. 42 Chevrolet prepared by his team of Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates.

“It’s a little disappointing” to finish sixth, but “the car just wasn’t up to it,” Montoya said. “It was a good points day and the bigger picture is good.”

The bigger picture is key not only to Montoya but to his team, which has struggled this season after being created last fall with the merger of Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Chip Ganassi Racing.

None of their drivers made the Chase last year, so having a shot at the title this season would give the team a major boost.

In the meantime, it’s ironic that Montoya labeled Sunday’s front-runners as too aggressive for his liking, considering that many thought Montoya too aggressive when he joined NASCAR.

In one case, his hard-charging moves angered Kevin Harvick after their cars collided in a race at another road course, at Watkins Glen, N.Y., in 2007.

The two drivers nearly came to blows after climbing out of their damaged cars, and Harvick griped that it seemed Montoya “runs over somebody every week.”

Montoya’s priority now is taking care of his car and completing races if he knows he can’t win. He has four top-10 finishes in the last five races.

Still, as the series moves to New Hampshire for its next race Sunday, Montoya’s bid to qualify for the Chase remains a stiff challenge.

Kahne’s win lifted him to 13th in the standings, a mere three points behind Montoya. And David Reutimann of Michael Waltrip Racing is only 40 points behind Montoya despite a disappointing 31st-place finish Sunday.

Stewart, a two-time Cup champion, leads the point standings, followed by four-time title winner Jeff Gordon of Hendrick Motorsports, who finished ninth Sunday.

The Chase opens after the 26th race of the season at Richmond, Va., on Sept. 12, so being in the top 12 after Sunday’s race officially counted for nothing, Montoya said.

“You’ve got to be in the top 12 after Richmond,” he said.

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james.peltz@latimes.com

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Driver standings

NASCAR Sprint Cup standings. Top 12 will quali- fy for the Chase for the Cup. The first of the 10 races in the Chase for the Cup will be held Sept. 20:

*--* NO. DRIVER POINTS BEHIND 1 Tony Stewart 2,364 -- 2 Jeff Gordon 2,280 84 3 Jimmie 2,207 157 -- Johnson 4 Kurt Busch 2,084 280 5 Carl Edwards 2,051 313 6 Ryan 2,046 318 -- Newman 7 Denny Hamlin 2,009 355 8 Greg Biffle 1,992 372 9 Kyle Busch 1,962 402 10 Matt Kenseth 1,957 407 11 Mark Martin 1,926 438 12 Juan Montoya 1,917 447 13 Kasey Kahne 1,914 450 14 David 1,877 487 -- Reutimann 15 Jeff Burton 1,871 493 *--*

Source: nascar.com