Schmidt Peterson Motorsports IndyCar team has held talks with ex-Formula 1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya about running him at the Indianapolis 500.
Montoya had been hoping to make a second consecutive appearance at the Indy 500 with Penske after he was replaced by Josef Newgarden full-time for 2017.
Penske has switched Montoya to its new Acura IMSA SportsCar Championship Acura in one of its two cars for 2018, and the commitment to sportscars means it has cut back a car for the IndyCar season and the Indy 500.
The team has said it is open to him racing elsewhere, and SPM team owner Sam Schmidt says he is hoping to step in.
“Roger deciding to not run Juan at Indy and allowing him to look for alternatives there has opened a door, and so it’s something Juan and I have discussed,” he said.
SPM has been given a higher status with Honda for 2018 and Schmidt says that may aid its cause in getting Montoya onboard.
“It would be very interesting and it works well with him being an Acura driver and us being a Honda team,” he added.
The talks have so far been preliminary, with SPM focusing on signing Mercedes DTM driver Robert Wickens and retaining James Hinchcliffe.
But Schmidt now says the team can turn its focus to potentially adding Montoya for the one-off race.
“It’s a scenario where we would have to find the funding, and to this point our total focus this off-season was getting the second car nailed down, getting a strong driver for it, and extending our deal with James,” he said.
“Now we can turn our attention a little more to the Indy situation, but we haven’t yet generated the funding internally to run that entry.
“We always have run an extra car there and that’s our intent again, but we haven’t been able to focus on it so far.”
Schmidt says it may be possible for Hinchcliffe’s primary sponsor to help Montoya get on the grid, but that his F1 pedigree and Indy 500 history should help its search for further funding.