Juan Montoya, the winner of Formula 1’s most prestigious race on the streets of Monaco. Montoya, NASCAR’s most feared road racer whose two Sprint Cup victories came at Sonoma and Watkins Glen. Montoya, who made his return to Indy car and…scored his first win on an oval.

Leave it to Montoya, possibly the hardest driver of his generation to define, to defy convention once again by notching his first Verizon IndyCar Series victory at Pocono rather than Long Beach or Mid-Ohio.

Frankly, it wasn’t a total surprise. Montoya’s coming off of seven consecutive years in Sprint Cup, and contested more than 250 oval races before turning his sights toward open-wheel racing with Team Penske. Of all the things that make Montoya a fascinating character to follow, his ability to work without borders or boundaries continues to set him apart from most of his contemporaries.

He was an instant success in F3000, in CART, in F1, won immediately in sports car racing and, given the team and fish-out-of-water scenario, had an extremely successful NASCAR debut, winning a race and placing 20th as a rookie. For those of us who idolize the sport’s great all-rounders – Andretti, Jones, Foyt, McLaren, Gurney and a select group of others – JPM is a throwback who shares the same talent and motivation to race and win in whatever he can get his hands on. Like many of those legends, versatility has been central to JPM’s career, yet mast of his best days in Indy car have been heavily skewed in an unexpected direction.

Take a look back at his brief stint in CART (1999-2000) and one trip to the Indy 500 (2000), and it’s reasonable to suggest JPM, who earned six of his 10 CART wins on ovals, and won Indy at his first try, is more of an oval specialist than a road course ringer.

Add in his victory at Pocono and eight of JPM’s 12 Indy car wins – a surprising 75 percent – have been claimed on ovals. For a kid who grew up karting, training in open-wheel series on both sides of the Atlantic and went on to succeed in the world’s top road racing series, you could argue he’s actually become an oval ringer. A quick call to harass JPM delivered his usual humor and insights on the topic.

“So, I guess those F1 wins don’t count?” he said with a laugh after it was suggested his reputation as a formidable road racer was a sham. “Back in the day, I always had good success on the ovals and CART was thought of as a road racing series, but they had a lot of oval races. A lot of those races I won were at places like Michigan, Nazareth, Brazil, St. Louis (Gateway), Milwaukee…all on the ovals. The thing is, I’ve never cared what type of track it is. It’s all about pushing the car to the limit and getting the most out of the car. That’s all I ever cared about.”

Montoya credits part of his impressive oval record to chassis setup.

“Something I learned a long time ago was finding what the car can do better for you,” he said. “If the car drives better, it’s a lot easier for you. For me, if I’m driving, and I can make the car do it for me instead of me trying to kill myself to make it go faster, that’s always gonna be easier.”

JPM also reckons he and the engineers on his No. 2 Team Penske Chevy have been particularly good at finding the sweet spot on oval setups.

“We’ve done a better job getting the car closer to what I want on the ovals this year, and it’s getting a lot closer on the roads and street stuff – we have some good directions we’re on there, too,” he continued. “For me, we’ve just been closer on the ovals. And it’s two turns, not 20 to deal with!”

Outside of the cockpit, Montoya brings a steely grit to Penske’s Indy car operation that has been missing since Gil de Ferran drove for The Captain. As Robin Miller wrote earlier in the week, JPM has gone from an unknown quantity at the beginning of the season to a legitimate threat for the IndyCar crown, and that journey has undoubtedly caused a bit of a stir under Penske’s awning.

With so many years away from Indy car racing, it was reasonable to assume JPM would spend 2014 in a supporting role to his teammates and perennial championship contenders Will Power and Helio Castroneves. He’d probably win a race or two, but the big prize would have to wait for 2015.

Now, with seven races left to go, Mr. Undefinable sits fourth in in the championship, just 55 points behind Power and Castroneves who share the championship lead. And if we’re honest, Montoya’s the only Penske driver whose mental fortitude isn’t a concern as the pressure continues to rise. If nothing else, he’s defied expectations once again, and caused those who thought of him as the third wheel to reappraise his ranking within the team.

He might be third among the Penske drivers in the points, but after his standout performance in Pocono, it’s hard to view JPM as the No. 3 driver at Team Penske. Power and Castroneves are clearly in Montoya’s crosshairs as the series heads to Iowa this weekend, and despite his rapid rise to championship contender status, JPM says all’s calm among the Penske drivers.

“We’re fourth in points, but there’s a lot of racing left,” he added. “Roger hired me because I can do the job. He believes I can still do the job, so from that point of view, things have been unbelievable. From Day 1 with Will and Helio, it’s always been very open and it’s a good relationship we have. We work so well together.

“We went testing at Pocono and Will [Power] helped me; I was having trouble in Turn 1 and he told me to use a different line and that made a huge difference to avoid a bump that was upsetting the car. It’s little stuff like that, unselfish stuff, and it helps the three of us. I can honestly say we’re all working hard to win the championship for Roger, and he brought me here to be one of the guys to make it happen.”

As we’ve seen so many other times throughout his career, placing expectations or limitations on JPM’s potential is a waste of time. He wasn’t supposed to be in the mix so soon, but he’s the biggest threat to those ahead of him in the standings. His teammates, who’ve had the luxury of worrying about Andretti Autosport and Target Chip Ganassi in recent years, are faced with a more personal challenge in 2014: the guy sitting across from them at dinner and in engineering debriefs – the only Indy car champion among them – is surging at precisely the right time and isn’t interested in being their wingman.

The knives have yet to come out between Team Penske’s driver trio, and hopefully they’ll stay sheathed but if tensions begin to rise, you’d be wise to put your money on Montoya. ​