Team Penske drivers Helio Castroneves, Will Power, Juan Pablo Montoya practice at Barber Motorsports Park
"Juan was in Formula One when I was coming up through the ranks so obviously you look up to those guys," Power said. "And he was fast in Formula One, too. He was a guy I'd look up to."
Now he's looking over at him as a teammate.
A former NASCAR, Formula One and CART driver is moved over to IndyCar, Montoya has moved over to IndyCar, joining Team Penske. His addition brings that team to three full-time drivers, who are in Birmingham today for test runs at Barber Motorsports Park.
AJ Allmendinger raced for Team Penske last year but only as a part-time driver during the season. Montoya is coming over from NASCAR, where he raced for Chip Ganassi Racing for seven years.
Power said a third full-time car on the team provides valuable information.
"Having three cars gets you a lot of information over a weekend," he said. "The weekends are short so you've got to get the details right very quickly as a team. To me, it makes us a bit stronger."
The team is in town testing in preparation for the 2014 IndyCar Series season. The Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama is the third race of the season taking place April 25-27 at Barber Motorsports Park.
Montoya joins a Penske team that has displayed success at Barber. Castroneves won the 2010 Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama and Power took that title the next two years, in 2011 and 2012.
But the new member of the team doesn't feel pressure in that regard.
"Not really," he said. "We've got good cars. The reason we can come to Barber and win it is because the cars are really quick here and seem to work pretty well. We'll see. For me, I've got to learn the track. We've got a spring training coming in about a month here so it should be fun."
Castroneves said providing some guidance to his new teammate hasn't changed the mission for him and his crew.
"The group No. 3 is going to have the same kind of mentality, try to go out there and win as many races as possible," he said. "But the main goal here is that we as a team work together to win this title for Team Penske."