Gordon, Montoya clash at Martinsville

The Colombian used an aggressive move to overtake Gordon while fighting for position in the first half of the race at the half-mile track. A later battle between the two saw them make contact a few times, with Montoya emerging ahead in the end.

Gordon claimed he did not understand the reason for Montoya's agressiveness towards him on the track.

"He's an aggressive driver, we've seen it from him before," said Gordon. "I thought I did something to make him mad because I didn't understand why he was just driving into me for no reason.

"But hey, that is Martinsville. That's kind of the way he drives. And I just tried not to make him mad anymore and race him as clean as I could. And unfortunately my car wasn't as good on the restarts and he got by me and we had a great battle for third and we raced clean at the end and that's all that really matters.

"I hope it's not something that transfers over because I don't know really what I did if I did do something."

Montoya responded to Gordon's remarks, saying that he was trying to set a precedent with the Hendrick driver, as he feels he had not been raced fairly in previous occasions.

He added that following their clashes in the first half of the race, he tried to ease things up and they eventually gave each other more room while fighting for third place in the closing stages.

"It's just every time we've been around racing against him, he runs the hell out of me," said Montoya. "He moved me out of the way before, and he was starting to do the same here today. I was running the outside of him, and every time he was just getting wider and wider.

"We're good. I talked to him afterwards. It's like, 'hey, I'm here, and you're not going to push me around; you know what I mean? If you give me room, I'll give you room.' He wasn't giving me any, so I played the same game.

"I talked got on the radio and said to the spotter, 'look, tell him if he comes I'm going to give him space, but I hope he does the same.' Right at the end we ran together and he gave me room and I gave him room. Sometimes you've got to set a precedent so people back off a little.

"It's okay. I never really had a big problem with him, but he's always so hard to race against. But he probably says the same thing against me, because he never gave me any room, why am I going to give him any? It's a vicious circle."

While Montoya finished Sunday's race in third place, Gordon struggled on the last few restarts, not only losing out to the Colombian but also to Kyle Busch, crossing the finish line in fifth.