Daniel Suarez now has two runner-up finishes since his most recent victory in the Cup Series, which came just over a year ago at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
In both of his most recent second-place finishes, Suarez had his Trackhouse teammate Ross Chastain behind him on the final restart, but in both situations, it still wasn’t quite enough to secure the victory. On Sunday, Chastain did manage to push Suarez out far enough to clear eventual race winner Josh Berry, but the Wood Brothers Racing driver was not going to be denied.
“Yeah, a little disappointed,” said Suarez. “But first of all, congratulations to the 21 team and Josh [Berry]. They did a great job. They’ve been fast lately. They’ve been in contention. So congratulations to them.”
Needed more short-run speed
But what went wrong for the No. 99? He was able to briefly get full control of the race after the restart, but according to Suarez, he simply didn’t have the short-run car he needed to hang on.
“We did everything right, you know? The team did an amazing job on the strategy, pit stops. We did everything right. Our car was fast,” explained Suarez. “We just struggle a little bit in the short run. I mention to my crew chief just a little bit ago, before the last run, I told him, ‘Hey, we want to be up front, I need a little bit better short run. I am having too much contact in (Turns) one and two.’
“Unfortunately I feel like that’s why we lost the race, just a little bit too much contact (with the track). I mean, I almost wrecked in (Turns) one and two.”
Photo by: Meg Oliphant / Getty Images
Suarez has had a difficult start to the year with two DNFs in the first four races, and no finish better than 13th. Sunday’s result was a step in the right in direction, and despite losing out on what could have been his third career win, he took pride in being in the contention.
“Just very, very proud of everyone at Trackhouse. We’ve been working very hard and it’s showing.”
A friendly shove
Chastain came home fifth and gave his own perspective of the finish, saying: “It got him [Suarez] clear to the lead,” noted Chastain. “I was fully committed to him and happy to do it. Got him a good push down the frontstretch and through the restart zone; another one into (Turn) one and another one into (Turn) three. We stayed connected well. It was aggressive, but it got him to the lead. And then he just bottomed out too hard with his car and let [Berry] inside of him a couple laps into that run. Bummer because he had a better car than we did and had a shot to win. It just slipped away from us.”
Afterwards, the two teammates discussed the end of the race on pit road with Chastain adding: “It’s pretty cool to be talking about what we could do better than second and fifth and legitimately running up there. It’s so frustrating though because you could see how close Daniel was. He had the better Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet today, and for him to be so close — it’s a bummer.”
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In this article
Nick DeGroot
NASCAR Cup
Josh Berry
Ross Chastain
Daniel Suarez
Wood Brothers Racing
Trackhouse Racing Team
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