Montoya fastest in Mexico practice

The Colombian set the fastest lap of the day in the final practice session during a qualifying simulation on new tyres and full tanks. He had been third in the morning session and first in the rookie practice.

"I'm very happy, it has been like 13 years since I came here for the last time and the track is really nice, I like it," Montoya told autosport.com. "Driving these cars here is fun you know, they move a lot and that makes it very challenging."

His best time was 1:27.011, 0.536 seconds clear of Scott Pruett in second, who is hoping to make the double at Mexico City this weekend, as he starts third in the Grand Am race on Saturday.

After being so dominant in practice, Montoya is the clear favorite to take pole position, although his aim is to be ahead when the checkered flag waves on lap 80 on Sunday.

"The most important thing is to be ahead on Sunday. Tomorrow, yeah it would be nice to be on pole but it's more important to have a good strategy for the race to be able to win.

"It's going to be tough, lots of cautions come out and you don't know what can happen.

"I think this is a good experience for me but it's all aimed at trying to move ahead with our Cup programme basically."

Defending winner of the event, Nextel Cup driver Denny Hamlin, ran strong all day and finished third, 0.744 seconds behind Montoya.

Mexican Carlos Contreras, who is the most experienced local in NASCAR, finished the day fourth after topping the times halfway through the final session.

Polesitter for the inaugural Busch Series event at Mexico, Jorge Goeters, finished fifth and more than a second off Montoya, while Australian Marcos Ambrose, one of the dark horses for Sunday, finished eighth, 1.6 seconds behind Montoya.

The only major incident of the day happened in the morning practice session when Dave Blaney crashed his Toyota head-on into the wall in the front-stretch, after a suspected suspension failure.

Michel Jourdain Jr, who drives the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford, had engine problems in the afternoon session and finished down in 22nd.

Qualifying takes place Saturday with the 43 drivers split in seven groups. The last group has the fastest runners from practice including Montoya, Pruett, Hamlin, Contreras, Goeters, Brad Coleman and Regan Smith.