Montoya and Stewart 'cool' on clash

Montoya initially blamed Stewart for their clash while battling for eighth position with 94 laps remaining, while the two-time Nextel Cup champion said it was a rookie mistake from Montoya that caused the contact.

"Yeah, we're cool," Montoya said at Texas, when asked if there were any hard feelings between him and Stewart.

"The thing is the press makes a fuss out of everything and we don't. He's OK with it, I'm OK with it, you guys are not. I don't care."

Previously this week Stewart spoke again about the incident during his radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio, but the American was more relaxed about what happened, stating he still has a lot of respect for the former Formula One star.

"We had Juan Pablo Montoya behind us on a restart and he tried to go to the outside of me and put me in the middle of three-wide before we even get to the flag stand, and I didn't really appreciate that much," Stewart said.

"So about 15 laps into the run here he comes and instead of just being courteous to him I thought, 'Well, he was going to put me in a bad spot so I'm going to put him in a bad spot.'

"So I raced him and raced him and raced him, and that's where I made my mistake.

"Juan didn't get to this position and didn't get to Formula One by making bad decisions. Even as a rookie this year, and it being a different series, even as much as he's accomplished in his career, you've still got things to learn when you move to a different series.

"I've got a lot of respect for Juan. I still stand behind what I said at the beginning of the year. He's got more natural ability than 99% of the guys I've ever raced with."

Montoya will start this weekend's race at Phoenix from 36th place, while Stewart is expected to be in the hunt for victory, starting from ninth.