WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — With enough fuel in the tank, Daniel Suarez roared to a career-best third-place Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series finish in the I LOVE NEW YORK 355 at The Glen.
Earlier in the day, the reigning XFINITY Series champion scored his second-best qualifying effort of the season with a fifth-place effort, putting the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota inside the top-10 for the fifth time this season.
“I feel like it was a good weekend,” said Suarez. “You know, we made a lot of progress from the first practice to second practice to qualifying and then to the race. You know, I’m very happy for the third place and for the result and for the overall race, but very hard to finish third when you can see the leader right there and you are just cruising to try to save fuel because you don’t really know how much fuel you have left.
“But overall, a very solid day.”
Suarez hoped to capitalize on an already strong weekend at the 2.45-mile road course during the 90-lap race.
While running comfortably inside the top-10 nearing the end of Stage 1, Suarez pitted on Lap 17 taking tires and fuel hoping to put his team in a good position to start Stage 2.
Restarting fourth for the start of Stage 2, Suarez was able to take the lead on Lap 31 when Chase Elliott pitted putting Suarez in the command for a Cup race for the third time in 2017.
With a stalking Martin Truex Jr. behind him, impressive blocking by the Monterrey, Mexico native allowed the Joe Gibbs Racing driver to squeeze out the Stage 2 win and earn one playoff point towards the post-season playoffs.
“I knew that he was coming fast,” added Suarez. “I’m not sure if he had fresher tires or something, but he was coming very fast, and I was just trying to hold him off a little bit, and luckily we were able to do it.”
“I knew that we’d raced each other very clean, and he’s been super strong the entire year, and I knew that he wasn’t going to do anything crazy and I wasn’t going to do anything crazy, either.”
“It was just a little hard racing right there at the end.”
Suarez led the field to green to start Stage 3, but was shuffled back through the field until a Lap 52 caution for debris on the track stacked the field once again.
Making his last trip to pit road, Suarez pitted for fuel and tires and restarted the race seventh but was still two laps shy of the checkered flag.
Over the course of the final 35 laps, Suarez was not only able to save fuel but maneuver through the field to put him in contention for his first Cup win in just his 22nd start.
While from a distance, Suarez hoped that Martin Truex Jr. and JGR teammate Matt Kenseth’s gas tanks would run dry, but there was enough fuel in the tanks to carry them to the checkered flag – leaving Suarez to claim his first career top-five and fourth straight top-10 finish, nearly nine seconds ahead of JGR teammate Denny Hamlin who took fourth.
Earlier in the year, Suarez said that he felt like the second half of the season would be the time that his No. 19 Cup team led by crew chief Scott Graves would be able to post finishes near the front.
“I really feel like my crew chief, Scott Graves, and the rest of the guys, myself, we get along very well, and we know what is our goal,” Suarez said. “We know that if we go out there to run aggressive, to wreck race cars and to not make any laps in the race weekend, we won’t learn anything. It’s going to be a year thrown to the trash, so since the beginning of the year that wasn’t our plan.
“Our plan was to start the season steady, learn, because every day it was a big step. I’ve been racing in the national series just for two years in this season, two years and a half, and there’s just been a lot going on, and I knew that it was a big step. But like I said, I have a great group of guys on my side.”
In the last seven races, Suarez’s worst finish is 18th at Kentucky Speedway, but at New Hampshire the following week, Suarez rocketed to a sixth, followed by back-to-back seventh place finishes at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Pocono Raceway respectively.
“I don’t remember exactly, but I think I mentioned in the beginning of the year that I was so looking forward to the second half of the year, as well, because I knew that the second half of the year we were going to be more competitive, and our second time at all these racetracks we were going to have enough book and we were going to go to those racetracks already knowing what to expect,” sounded Suarez.
“You know, all the hard work from my team and from everyone in the 19 group and from Joe Gibbs Racing, TRD, Toyota, it’s paying off. In the beginning of the year, we were not like that. I wasn’t the same driver, either, and now I feel like we are moving in the right direction. We have speed pretty much every weekend now where we are running in the top 10.
“I don’t think it’s a surprise anymore to run in the top 10.”
With some huge momentum on their side, Suarez is still hopeful that he can score his first career Cup win in the remaining four races (Michigan, Bristol, Darlington and Richmond) in the regular season that can propel him into the playoffs.
They’ve been teaching me and coaching me with everything that we are doing, and I feel like honestly, we are in a good spot, in a good direction, and we just have to keep moving in the same direction,” added Suarez. “Hopefully we can close the end of the year even stronger.
“We just have to keep it up. We have to keep ourselves calm, and hopefully, we can catch a break in the next few weeks, month or so, to try to make it in the playoffs.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
