Montoya will team up with his son in the race

SEBRING, Florida, USA (AP) - Sebastián Montoya has been on the motorsport tracks since he was a baby. Back then, his father carried him on his shoulders in the Formula One paddock.

Now, he is one month away from turning 17 and he is carving his own path in this sport. This weekend, at the Sebring International Raceway, he will run the most important race of his life.

And his father Juan Pablo Montoya will team up with him, with “Montoyita”, in the 12 Hours of Sebring.

Father and son share the car that won the LMP2 category in the 24 Hours of Daytona with a different lineup. The DragonSpeed USA ranked second on Friday in the category, with Henrick Hedman, the team's third driver.

This opportunity to run alongside his father will make a big difference in his current relationship, in which Montoya is a mentor and coach of “Sebas”, who seeks to move up the European youth categories.

Montoya Jr. has spent his entire life following his father in F1, IndyCar and NASCAR. In all these categories, the Colombian won, during a career that includes a pair of victories in the Indianapolis 500 and the 1999 scepter in the CART.

“This is different, because he is my dad and my coach on the track, and now he will be my partner,” Montoyita told The Associated Press. “I don't have to get over it. I actually have to work with him and I really like that. He knows how many cars work, so his experience has made my life much easier.”

Montoya is still the typical father of a pilot, with high expectations for his son. He always said he would allow his sons to decide if they wanted to compete — along with his wife Connie he has Sebastian and two younger daughters.

And while his son was moving up to drive bigger cars and starting to enjoy the competitions, both decided to boost his career.

The whole family left their old house in Miami. The pilots now reside in Monaco, while Connie and the daughters are in Madrid.

They meet on weekends, and watch the way Sebastian amazes his father, who is not exactly very easy to impress.

“Even when he does it right, he hates it, because I will criticize something,” Montoya told the PA. “I tell him: 'You're great, but... 'and he hates buts but learns where they come from. We have a really good working relationship, in a way that you can say that we created a monster, because he is really focused.”

Montoya hosted the DragonSpeed last year, and the team asked that he test his son by the end of 2021. When Montoyita was faster than his father, he signed the Sebring agreement and got the opportunity not only to compete in the same race that his father would participate in, but to be his teammate.

The 12-hour race will be a rehearsal for Montoyita, who runs 30-minute races in Europe. A single stay in Sebring is 38 minutes, and most drivers double and triple their stay in the car each time.

But if Montoya Jr. gets it right, there is an opportunity for him to become an additional DragonSpeed driver in the remaining long-running races within the IMSA calendar.