BROOKLYN, Mich: In a 400-mile race that ultimately decided who had enough in the tank to make it to the checkered flag, Daniel Suarez and his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang throttled forward when others ran out of gas to finish fifth in the Consumers Energy 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
Suarez had a solid No. 41 ARRIS Ford Mustang throughout the summer trip to the Irish Hills, but what made Suarez’s third top-five of the year much more important was his ability to make up critical ground in the race for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
Entering Michigan Suarez sat 18th in the championship standings, but with his top-five effort, the 2016 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion heads to Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway 17th in the championship standings and a mere six points behind Clint Bowyer who holds the cutoff position with three races remaining in the regular season.
Suarez gained 17 points overall on his competition, it wasn’t an easy day though.
After finishing Stage 1 strong, the handling went away on his No. 41 Ford Mustang during Stage 2. Luckily, after changing tires, Suarez’s car returned to form and allowed him to battle back to the front and contend for his eighth top-10 finish of the season.
“It was a decent day for us,” offered Suarez. “We had ups and downs. “I feel like we were going to finish top-eight, top-nine. (The) first stage, we had a top-10 car, we were running pretty good there. We missed it a little bit with the last set of tires and wound up finishing 11th.
“For Stage 2, not sure what happened. We lost everything. I’m pretty sure it was a bad set of tires or something. From running top-10 I went to running 30th. Then, we changed tires and made a little adjustment and I’m back to a top-five, top-10 car. Not sure exactly what happened there, we’ll have to look into it.”
Suarez praised his Stewart-Haas Racing team for their adjustments during the race that ultimately produced the finish that will allow Suarez to continue to pursue a spot in the coveted Playoffs.
I’m very proud of my team, we worked very hard,” sounded Suarez. “The team was able to overcome that with good adjustments and they put me back in the game with track position and we were able to get a good result from there.”
As for making the 10-race Playoffs, Suarez had a quick answer on how to get into the 16-driver championship pursuit.
“(By doing) the same thing we did this weekend.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
