The worst kept secret in NASCAR is finally official.
Gaunt Brothers Racing officially announced Tuesday that Daniel Suárez will join the NASCAR Cup Series organization aboard the No. 96 Toyota Camry fulltime in 2020 beginning with the Daytona 500 on Feb. 16, 2020.
This season will mark Suárez’s fourth year in the NASCAR Cup Series and a return to Toyota with whom the Hispanic has enjoyed so much success.
“It’s great to be back with Toyota and back in the NASCAR Cup Series,” said Suárez, a native of Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico.
“My NASCAR career started off really well and Toyota was a very big part of that. To have them in my corner again gives me a lot of confidence. Gaunt Brothers Racing has something to prove and so do I. We’re committed to each other and we’re going to build each other up.”
Suárez, 28, won the 2016 NASCAR Xfinity Series championship behind the wheel of a Joe Gibbs Racing-prepared Toyota Camry. His title-winning drive earned him a promotion to Gibbs’ NASCAR Cup Series program where he continued in Toyotas throughout the 2017 and 2018 seasons before joining Stewart-Haas Racing in 2019.
As the 2020 season is set to get underway, Suárez is happy to be back with the manufacturer who ushered him up the NASCAR ladder and into the elite NASCAR Cup Series.
“We are pleased that Daniel is rejoining the Toyota family in 2020,” said Ed Laukes, group vice president, marketing, Toyota Motor North America. “He has been a member of the Toyota Racing family throughout the majority of his career and contributed greatly to our shared success, most notably in winning the 2016 Xfinity Series championship.
“We are excited to see Gaunt Brothers Racing move to a fulltime entry next season and thrilled to have Daniel behind the wheel. We look forward to this new partnership.”
Suárez’s racing career began in 2003 when he competed in go-karts. He is a two-time Mexican national karting champion (2004 and 2008) and twice earned a spot to compete in the Rotax MAX Challenge Grand Finals karting event – 2004 in Spain and 2008 in Italy. In 2008, he joined the mini-stock division – an official support series of the NASCAR PEAK Mexico Series.
Suárez won 10 races in the NASCAR PEAK Mexico Series before coming stateside to compete in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series. He kept on winning, scoring three victories in 2013 before transitioning to the Xfinity Series. His championship season in 2016 consisted of three wins, three poles and 19 top-five and 27 top-10 finishes.
In winning his first career Xfinity Series race on June 11, 2016, at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Suárez became the first Mexican driver to win a NASCAR national series race.
Gaunt Brothers Racing traces its roots back to 2010 when it began competing in the NAAR K&N Pro Series and the Canada-based NASCAR Pinty’s Series. Gaunt Brothers Racing won the 2011 Toyota All-Star Showdown with driver Jason Bowles at Irwindale (Calif.) Speedway and scored the pole for the 2011 Streets of Toronto 100 with a track-record qualifying time on the city circuit, with Bowles again at the wheel.
2020 will mark Gaunt Brothers Racing first fulltime foray in Cup Series competition with crew chief Dave Winston, the former vehicle performance group engineer and also the race engineer for driver Daniel Hemric.
“We’ve been working toward this moment since Gaunt Brothers Racing joined the Cup Series in 2017,” said Marty Gaunt, president, Gaunt Brothers Racing. “We’ve made steady improvement every year, but bringing Daniel on board allows us to take a giant leap forward.
“We’re investing in each other. He’s not content to just be here and neither are we. We’ve been very strategic in everything we’ve done, and between our partnership with Toyota and the resources now available to us, we can take that next step and deliver for Daniel and all of our partners.”
Coca-Cola and CommScope continue their respective partnerships with Suárez at Gaunt Brothers Racing. The iconic Coca-Cola brand has been with Suárez since 2015 when he won the Xfinity Series rookie-of-the-year title.
CommScope, a leader in communication network technology, has been with Suárez through its ARRIS and Ruckus Networks brands since 2014 when he first competed in the Xfinity Series.
While eligible for the non-points Busch Clash on Feb. 9, Suárez and Gaunt Brothers Racing have opted not to compete in the exhibition race to instead focus attention on their preparation for the Daytona 500.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
