Suarez Scores Top 20 in Home Country Race at Mexico City
By Luis Torres, Staff Writer/Photographer
On a weekend where celebration was the word, Daniel Suarez was finally able to compete in front of his home country as a NASCAR Cup Series competitor.
Fans by the thousands showed up, primarily to see the Monterrey racer battle it out with 36 other competitors in Sunday’s inaugural Viva Mexico 250 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City.
Momentum and anticipation ran an all-time high prior to rolling off 10th as Suarez won Saturday’s Xfinity Series race for JR Motorsports. Therefore, an opportunity for Suarez to sweep the weekend in his home country and get his third career Cup win to punch his ticket into the Playoffs.
However, a shot at victory wasn’t in the cards. While Suarez ended up 10th in both stages, the driver of the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet could only muster a 19th place result without leading in the 100-lap contest.
Despite needing tremendous amount of work to points his way into the Playoffs with 10 races remaining, none of that really matters in the moment.
The grand picture was completing his home race and hoping that people enjoyed the weekend. Not only it exceeded expectations for Suarez, but he was also happy across the board.
“Every single thing about this weekend exceeded my expectations, the people, the fans, the sponsors, the excitement, the energy,” said Suarez.
“I had expectations for this weekend, not the results but, like, the event, and I can tell you that I personally exceeded those expectations. So very, very happy for that. Very blessed. I hope that we can do it many more times.”
Although the future of NASCAR returning to Mexico is already facing uncertainty, it’s safe to say Suarez would love this to be a staple on the premiere series calendar going forward.
As far as race performance was concerned, Suarez’s teammate Shane van Gisbergen won the race for his second career Cup win and the first as a full-time competitor. Suarez explained that it came down to decision making as one of the big differences between him and SVG performance wise.
This time around, the No. 99 team were no match to the No. 88 team.
“We make decisions as a group. Sometimes they are good decisions, sometimes they are not that great decisions,” said Suarez.
“We don’t have exactly the same race cars. We have different geos, different springs, so the cars are not the same. And then the strategy, too. Today the strategy didn’t work out.
“Do I think that with the same strategy I was going to beat him? I don’t know,” Suarez continued.
“It’s impossible to say. My car was good, but it wasn’t great. It was just good. It was falling off a lot in the long run.
“It’s hard to know. We just have to continue to work, and hopefully we get better enough in the next 10 weeks to make it into the playoffs.”
Suarez will head to Pocono Raceway (Sunday 2 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime) 29th in the regular season standings, a whopping 99 markers behind 16th placeholder Chris Buescher.
