Juan Pablo Montoya continued to make dramatic progress during his second season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, despite a 32nd -place finish in Saturday night's Crown Royal 400 at the Richmond International Raceway.

Montoya, a former Indianapolis 500 and CART Champ Car Series champion, left Richmond ranked 16th in the standings, 66 points from a top-12 spot that could qualify him for the Chase for the Championship.

The fiery Columbian talked about his progress and the work ahead for Chip Ganassi Racing. Here are excerpts of that interview:

Question: How do you feel about being in the top 12, which would qualify you to compete in the Chase for the Championship?

Montoya: We've been really consistent. I think that's really key for our team. Apart from the first race, pretty much every race we've had a top 20 finish. Last weekend was a really good weekend for us.

Being realistic, to really be able to make the Chase, you have to run a little bit better. We're running average, maybe 12th to 15th place car.

If we could run closer to the 10s then we could probably get into the Chase.

Question: Has the learning curve been more difficult than you expected?

Montoya: I thought the first part went pretty smooth. The last bit has been pretty hard. To get good every week is really hard. It's not only myself, it's the entire team. We swapped crew chiefs (Donnie Wingo was transferred to Reed Sorenson's team two weeks ago; Jimmy Elledge moved to Montoya)."

Question: How would Dale Earnhardt Jr. do in an Indy-car?

Montoya: I think in an Indy car he'd do pretty good because the Indy car now you ride wide-open everywhere. It's like Talladega everywhere and he's pretty good at drafting.

Question: Have you been working with your new teammate, Dario Franchitti, lately?

Montoya: I've talked to him a little bit. It's got to be tough for him. It's tough because he was getting good at it. The first few races he struggled. You look at Phoenix he run pretty good. And now you think, 'He did pretty good', and now that (broken ankle) happens. It's pretty frustrating."

Question: Why has Chip Ganassi Racing struggled so much with its NASCAR program?

Montoya: I think he's (Chip Ganassi) been in Indy so long and use to the ovals with a lot of grip. And then all of a sudden you take 70 percent of the grip away, what do you do? You're still going pretty fast, that's the problem.

Question: Have the length of NASCAR races been tough on you?

Montoya: For me it hasn't. I don't mind it. It's pretty good because you have all that time to work on the car and make it better and make good changes and stuff. It's frustrating when you have a really good car to start with, sometimes you can only make it worse. Those are the kind races that want to make them short. Martinsville and Bristol are the worst ones. You run three cautions and you look up and you've done 80 laps, you think 'Ok, 420 to go'. That's pretty hard.

Question: What's the perfect length for a Sprint Cup race?

Montoya: I think a three hour race. Three - maybe three and a half.

There are some that go too long.

Question: Is it a burden to be a driver and a team owner?

Montoya: You might ask me in five years, and I'll say 'maybe'. But now....no. And deal with a guy like me. No. I don't think your want to do that.

Question: Can you win the championship?

Montoya: Somebody would be dreaming if somebody tells me that. I think as a company we're getting better. I think we need a little bit more time.

Question: What about you as a driver?

Montoya: I think I'm pretty good. I still got to learn a little bit, understand what the car needs. But that's part of the whole experience.

Question: What more do you have to learn?

Montoya: I think the racing part I'm pretty good at. I think it's more of, 'Do I need a track bar? Do I want to pull rubber out? Is it the wedge? Is it the track bar on the left or right?' It's all kinds of things. When the car is really good, then it's very easy to adjust like that because you all want to pick 'here'. When the car is bad, it's very hard to decide which is the worst pick.

Question: Does it bother Chip Ganassi that he hasn't found success in NASCAR?

Montoya: It drives all of us nuts. We all want to do really good in NASCAR. Chip's a guy who has won pretty much everything. He's been close winning here before, but were not going to win overnight. It's all about a process.

Question: Was Chip upset when he swapped your crew chiefs?

Montoya: Not with me. He just told me that everyone is thinking that for the best of the team, that we should swap the crew chiefs. You should work better with Jimmy (Elledge) and Donnie (Wingo) would work better with Reed (Sorenson). I said, 'If you want to do that, go ahead.' I'll work with any of them. I really like Donnie; I didn't mind him.

Question: Do you want to win a championship in NASCAR?

Montoya: Of course. Do you think I came here for holidays? Of course you want to win races. If I didn't think that I could - every week - come out here have a chance at winning, I shouldn't even show up.

Right now we can just do with what we got and do as good as we are. You cannot expect to go, 'We're 12th now so we need to run in the top 10 every week'. We haven't run in the top 10 but once this year. All of a sudden are we going to run in the top 10 every week? No, that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen overnight because we finished second in Talladega. Are we going to have more top fives and top 10s?

Probably yes. We just have to make it a little bit better.

-- Compiled by Don Coble