Montoya will start third after tweaks tighten 42

MEXICO CITY -- What's Spanish for "we'll come back and get 'em tomorrow?"

Juan Montoya will line up third behind Ganassi teammate Scott Pruett for Sunday's Telcel-Motorola 200, but he left Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Saturday wondering if those positions shouldn't have been reversed.

Crew chief Brad Parrott made a couple of tweaks to Montoya's No. 42 Dodge in an effort to win the pole. Instead, the move backfired when Montoya was unable to equal or exceed Friday's practice times.

"[Saturday] my crew chief decided to make some changes and the car was a little tight," Montoya said. "It's disappointing because we had a real good car [Friday], but it's good."

Montoya didn't elaborate on the changes, which resulted in a fastest lap of 87.675 seconds in Saturday's unique qualifying format, which put cars on the track in groups of six for six minutes each. Montoya was in the last group, with Pruett, second-place Carlos Contreras and defending race winner Denny Hamlin.

"Basically [Parrott] told me what the car was doing [Friday] and suggested some things that might make it better," he said. "It didn't work out, but things like that happen.

"We should be good [Sunday]. With the way the car was handling Friday, we'll be pretty good."

On Friday, Montoya was nearly six-tenths of a second faster in what appeared to be similar conditions.

"It's an awesome track," Montoya said. "It takes a lot of talent to go around and its tricky and needs a lot of rhythm. I hope we can have a good weekend and bring the car home this time. I see our team going higher and higher and that is the main goal."

Hamlin and Brad Coleman also had trouble matching their practice times in qualifying. Hamlin will roll off fifth while Coleman wound up 14th.

Contreras picked up two-tenths from his best lap Friday.

"One day, a Latino is going to win a NASCAR race and the Hispanic following of this sport will go through the roof," Contreras said. "I hope that winner will be me on Sunday. If it's not me, I hope it will be Juan Pablo Montoya."

Montoya is from Colombia.

"I get a great reception from the Mexican crowd," he said. "This is the closest thing I get to racing at home. The first thing I did when I came in [Thursday] night was go to my favorite restaurant."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.