NASHVILLE: One year ago, Daniel Suarez enjoyed all that Champions’ Week had to offer in Music City.
Suarez had finished 10th in the NASCAR Cup standings. After six seasons in the sport, his breakthrough win at Sonoma allowed the affable racer to advance to the Playoffs for the first time in his career.
Flanked by his stunning fiancee Julia Piquet on the red carpet for the NASCAR Awards celebration in Nashville, Suarez appeared to have finally arrived in the sport.
But in 2023, the No. 99 team failed to capitalize on last year’s success.
“We have a lot of things to look at and to be better at,” Suarez said prior to the season finale at Phoenix Raceway.
Suarez started 2023 strong with three-straight top 10 results. After he finished 22nd at Phoenix Raceway in March, 29th at Atlanta Motor Speedway and then 27th at Circuit of the Americas, the 30-year-old racer from Monterrey Mexico dropped out of the top 16.
Without a win in the first 26 races, his points were not enough to lift Suarez above he cutline.
“I don’t work my butt off to win a race once in a while when we’re operating,” Suarez said. “I want to win a bunch of races and contend for a championship. So we have work to do and it’s not a secret. We know that we just have to get to work.”
Suarez’s frustration was evident following lackluster practice and qualifying sessions at Phoenix on November 4. He was 24th on the speed chart after 35 laps of practice and qualified 16th. Suarez mentioned that the “little things” needed to be addressed to bring him up to speed with teammate Ross Chastain, who drives the No. 1 Chevrolet for Trackhouse.
“We made some mistakes as well during practice in the way that we were approaching things, adjustments,” Suarez said. “We wasted a lot of time. We wasted a set of tires. We wasted 15 minutes of practice, things like that. We want to be championship contender kind of team. We have work to do. We can win a race with the way we’re operating, but that’s not my goal.
“I would say that the (No.) 1 is way more consistent than us. The speed, when we have the speed, the speed is almost the same. I would say, road course racing, that’s separate. But everywhere else I would say that 50 percent of the time we have the same speed, but the other 50 percent of the time we just missed it.”
Suarez’s angst must have been amplified by Chastain advancing to the second round of time trials and qualifying eighth. One day later, Chastain held off Ryan Blaney to win the Cup Series Championship race at Phoenix—the only time a non-Playoff driver has won the finale since the format was introduced in 2014.
“We were just not as consistent as they are. They have a way to do things that they’re way more reliable. They’re more consistent. I can’t remember the last time–well, I do actually–but it’s not very often that you see the 1 car strolling in the back or the 99. I just think that they are a little bit more consistent than us.”
Chastain wasn’t the only driver to win out of the Trackhouse stable. Project 91’s Shane Van Gisbergen was victorious in his first Cup start at the inaugural Chicago Street Race. Van Gisbergen, 34, will run a multi-tour schedule in stock cars in anticipation of a full-time Cup opportunity in the future.
The three-time Australian Supercars champion is not alone. Trackhouse recently signed Zane Smith, who is currently on loan at Spire Motorsports until the company can comfortably add the former truck champ to the roster.
“It’s great that Trackhouse is growing,” Suarez said. “I love that. I want Trackhouse to be a powerhouse. With that being said, right now, the 99 team requires some attention and we have to work on that. We have to clean up some things and be better.
“Obviously, there are a lot of other things going on within Trackhouse. Project 91, the third car alliance and things of that nature. But I think that the team is capable of doing everything at the same time. We just have to be smart and real about it, too. We can’t be in the position where we are just hoping things to get better, because hope will only get us so far. So we have to get to work and be real about the issues that we have.”
Team owner Justin Marks believes that as the success of his drivers goes, so does the success of Trackhouse.
“We fight with everything that we’ve got to fight with to give both of those guys an opportunity to win every single week,” Marks said following Chastain’s win at Phoenix. “They (the No. 99 team) struggled a little bit this year. They’ve been fast at times, and they’ve had some really, really great races. We owe it to Daniel and to the organization this winter to take a real hard look at that 99 program and make sure we are surrounding him in 2024 with all the tools and things that he needs to be successful.
“I think in any multi-car organization, there’s one or two that are behind the others for a number of different reasons, whether it’s data or information or process or culture, whatever. We just have to take a hard look at that and make sure that we re-rack the deck in 2024 with a tremendous opportunity for him to go out and be successful because we’ve got the people and partners and tools to have both these cars in the Playoffs and fighting in every round.”
Suarez says there’s not just one person or one thing to blame. He’s had tough conversations with his crew chief Travis Mack to discuss what can be done to improve performance. Clearly, Suarez hopes to approach the new season with solid solutions.
“We just have to continue to analyze everything as a group and figure it out because we certainly don’t want to start like this next year,” Suarez said. “We want to be stronger and we want to be smarter and we want to be more efficient.
“Everyone–also me as a driver–I’m 100 percent sure there are things that I can do better as well. I’m not saying that there is one person that that is the problem is just we have to be better. It’s a group effort.”
Marks agrees.
“We owe it to him,” Marks said of Suarez. “He’s a tremendous human being. He’s a tremendously talented race car driver that wants it as much as anybody else out here. We’re going to try to make sure the next season replicates 2022.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
