KANSAS CITY, Kan. – A night of patience and focus rewarded 2016 NASCAR XFINITY Series champion Daniel Suarez with a career-best Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series finish in Saturday night’s Go Bowling 400 at Kansas Speedway.
After starting 15th, Suarez never looked back and continued to work through changing track conditions and late-race chaos to finish seventh, matching his career-best finish in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota for the third time in 2017.
“It was good. Very proud of the way that — that the car worked the entire race. Scott (Graves, crew chief) and the guys they did a very good job,” said Suarez.
“We had a top-10 car and that’s exactly where we ended up. Very happy for the performance of the car and looking forward to keep digging, keep working and keep learning for next weekend.”
Saturday night’s performance was the first top-10 finish for Suarez and crew chief Scott Graves in Cup since former crew chief Dave Rodgers took an indefinite personal leave of absence last month.
The NASCAR Next alumnus and diversity graduate was the second highest finishing Joe Gibbs Racing driver behind Kyle Busch (fifth) and ahead of Matt Kenseth (12th) and Denny Hamlin (23rd) who was involved in a late-race skirmish.
Earlier this season, Suarez earned back-to-back seventh place runs at Phoenix Raceway and Auto Club (Calif.) Speedway.
After 11 races, the Monterrey, Mexico native sits 19th in the championship standings, 25 points behind the playoffs cut line of 16th currently occupied by Kasey Kahne.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01 or email [email protected].
