Stewart hits back at Montoya

Montoya blamed Stewart for their collision on lap 240 while they were battling for eighth place, saying the two-time Cup champion raced him aggressively and did not give him enough room.

However, Stewart believes the same of Montoya and blamed the Colombian for the incident.

"If you do stuff like that and try to race people before you get to the start/finish line - then when I raced him, I raced him. And he took us out. That's just what happened," Stewart said.

"I'm going to race people how they race me. You earn respect by doing things that are smart out there, and trying to pull out of line with 110 laps to go coming to the green flag doesn't make much sense. If you race people with respect you get respect."

Stewart also claimed that Montoya did not show any patience while racing him, stating that he must learn more about how to race in NASCAR. He also warned the former Formula One driver about not getting any help from him in the future.

"Maybe Ganassi doesn't pay him to run in the back, but you might want to be just a little bit more patient just long enough to learn everything and how everything's done over here," Stewart added.

"He didn't make friends with me today so he won't get any help from me in the future."

Stewart's race went from bad to worse after the incident with Montoya, having a flat tyre after contact with Joe Nemechek and a later spin on turn 4 while trying to get back on the lead lap.

"We fought a no-handling car all day and fought it good enough to keep it in the top-10. But the deal with Montoya, the flat tyre and... it all just added up to a bad day,"  Stewart said.

Despite his 25th place finish on Sunday, Tony Stewart is currently ninth in the Nextel Cup standings, 322 points behind leader Jeff Gordon.