Montoya wins maiden Busch race

The Colombian led the first part of the race but had fallen down to 21st after a refuelling problem forced him to make an extra pitstop. He quickly recovered in the last 20 laps to put himself in contention for victory.

Montoya's victory marks the first win for a Hispanic driver in the Busch Series. Furthermore, Sunday's race in Mexico was also the most international event NASCAR has ever staged, given the number of non-US drivers in the field.

"I'm really happy," Montoya told autosport.com. "When they told me we didn't have enough fuel to make it to the end I thought I wasn't going to win this one. The team did a great job and despite all the problems were able to make it.

"I'm very sorry about what happened with Scott. We're both teammates here, we raced together in the 24-hours, you know.

"I braked a little bit later than him, went for the inside, I was there and I thought he saw me because he was coming quite wide, and when he came across I thought 'Oh my god'. I had just no room to go. I tried to back off, but it was too late."

The race went underway with the field making it clean through Turn 1. The two Ganassi cars of Pruett and Montoya started to pull away from the pack and on lap 3, Montoya made a late dive on the inside of Pruett in Turn 1, the two cars nearly rubbing fenders, but the Colombian emerging in the lead.

The first round of pitstops for the leader came under green on lap 10 with Montoya going for four tyres, fuel and adjustments to the left rear suspension. Pruett followed Montoya through the pit road while Mexican Carlos Contreras stayed out to take the lead.

By the end of the lap and going into Peraltada, the final right hander heading into the front-stretch, Denny Hamlin went on the outside of Contreras, performing a spectacular overtaking manoeuvre to take the lead.

As the Joe Gibbs driver pitted at the end of lap 12, Mexicans Jorge Goeters and German Quiroga Jr took the lead of the race, the latter building a ten-second lead as he stayed out longer than anybody else.

On lap 25 the first caution came out when Venezuelan Alex Garcia spun after making contact with Scott Pruett. This evaporated Quiroga's lead as he went into the pits, while Montoya, Pruett and most of the top runners stayed out.

The second round of pitstops for the top three came on lap 45 with Montoya emerging on the lead again from Pruett and Hamlin. However, his crew ran in trouble with the refuelling and did not fill the tank as planned.

"We have to build a big lead, we're going to have to pit again," crew chief Brad Parrott told Montoya on the radio. The Colombian set a blistering pace thereafter, setting the fastest lap of the race while building a 15-second lead by lap 50.

On lap 54 the second caution came out when Jorge Goeters and Todd Souza came together in Turn 4. When the pit road opened, Montoya pitted for fuel and tyres, falling down to 21st as Pruett, Hamlin and the rest of the top runners stayed out.

As the racing restarted on lap 55 Pruett stayed ahead with Hamlin putting him under pressure. Only seven laps later, a third caution came out when Brad Coleman spun at Turn 4. Montoya had already made his way up to ninth by then, behind local Adrian Fernandez.

With fresher tyres than his rivals, Montoya was the man to watch when the green flag waved with 16 laps to go. By lap 70, with only 10 to go, Montoya overtook Boris Said into Turn 1 to take second at the restart. Behind him, Hamlin took third, overtaking Said into Turn 2.

With Montoya and Pruett looking for their first NASCAR victory, it was going to be a tough fight between the two Ganassi drivers - and so it was.

With seven laps to go, Montoya repeated his late surprise dive on the inside of Pruett under braking for Turn 1, although this time things ended in a different way.

Pruett spun as Montoya hit his right rear, the Colombian successful at staying in the lead after being forced to go through the grass between Turns 1 and 2. It was classic Montoya.

"That was the dirtiest, nastiest move I've ever seen done by a teammate," Pruett said afterwards. "He was faster than me, if he had waited he would've passed me. We talked about it in meetings and he did it anyway."

With five laps to go, the green waved again. Montoya had a damaged left front fender and Hamlin tried to put the former Formula One star under pressure. He even hit the back of his car a couple of times.

With two laps to go, the last caution came out for debris on track forcing a green-white-chequer end to the race.

Montoya had no problems this time opening a comfortable gap to Hamlin, taking his first NASCAR victory - also the first for a non-US driver since Ron Fellows won a Busch Series race at Watkins Glen in 2001.

Telcel Motorola Mexico 200 results:

Pos  Driver               Make        Laps
 1.  Juan Pablo Montoya   Dodge        82
 2.  Denny Hamlin         Chevrolet    82
 3.  Boris Said           Dodge        82
 4.  Carl Edwards         Ford         82
 5.  Scott Pruett         Dodge        82
 6.  Jason Leffler        Toyota       82
 7.  Jorge Goeters        Ford         82
 8.  Marcos Ambrose       Ford         82
 9.  Adrian Fernandez     Chevrolet    82
10.  Jon Wood             Ford         82
11.  Todd Kluever         Ford         82
12.  David Reutimann      Toyota       82
13.  Dave Blaney          Toyota       82
14.  David Ragan          Ford         82
15.  Brent Sherman        Chevrolet    82
16.  Kyle Krisiloff       Ford         82
17.  Bobby Hamilton Jr    Ford         82
18.  Steve Wallace        Dodge        82
19.  Mike Wallace         Chevrolet    82
20.  Greg Biffle          Ford         82
21.  Shane Huffman        Chevrolet    82
22.  Brian Simo           Chevrolet    82
23.  Todd Souza           Chevrolet    82
24.  PJ Jones             Chevrolet    82
25.  Michel Jourdain Jr   Ford         82
26.  Regan Smith          Chevrolet    82
27.  Stephen Leicht       Ford         82
28.  German Quiroga Jr    Chevrolet    81
29.  Rogelio Lopez        Dodge        81
30.  Scott Wimmer         Chevrolet    81
31.  Kertus Davis         Chevrolet    81
32.  Ron Fellows          Chevrolet    81
33.  Alex Garcia          Chevrolet    80
34.  Carlos Contreras     Dodge        72
35.  David Gilliland      Chevrolet    68
36.  JJ Yeley             Chevrolet    68
37.  Brad Coleman         Chevrolet    61
38.  John Young           Ford         33
39.  Stanton Barrett      Chevrolet    30
40.  Ruben Pardo          Dodge         8
41.  Antonio Perez        Dodge         3
42.  Brad Keselowski      Chevrolet     2