Daniel Suarez said he wanted his fans to know his Trackhouse Racing team is working hard to improve after posting a video on social media last weekend apologizing for his performance.
The video was recorded and posted after Suarez finished 24th at Darlington Raceway. He was still returning home from the circuit when he directly addressed his fans.
“For me, the way I see it, there are a lot of people who come from very far away, and I see them every week because I go to the freight forwarder to sign autographs for them for 30 minutes,” Suárez said Friday on North Wilkesboro Expressway. “I see people coming from different parts of the country with Mexican flags to support me, and I don’t feel like I’ve been doing well lately, and if my driver is going 30°, that sucks. That’s not good.
“I feel like they deserve better, and I’m not saying I’m not working because I am and my team is working. We’re just at a point where we’re not fast and we have to figure it out. I just wanted to let you know that it won’t go unnoticed; I feel like they deserve better and I don’t like seeing people—Mexican flags in the stands—and people supporting me with their children and me running like that.
“That’s just not me. If this were my normality, I would retire tomorrow because I am not good running like this.”
Gibbs takes pole for Open, All-Star qualifying postponed until Saturday
Harvick ‘looking behind the curtain’ at Hendrick Motorsports
Gibbs leads combined All-Star and Open practice at North Wilkesboro
Suarez and the No. 99 team are locked into the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs after winning at Atlanta Motor Speedway in February. However, Suarez has finished in the top 10 just once since that race and is 18th overall with 39 laps led (out of four races combined). He has finished 20th or worse in five of the last seven races.
Suárez and his Trackhouse Racing have tried innovative and back-to-basics approaches to get out of their crisis, without success. Matt Thacker/Motorsports Images
In the video, Suárez admitted that the frustration within the team, led by crew chief Matt Swiderski, is insufficient. It has mainly been a speed problem with Suárez’s Chevrolet. Quite the opposite for Suárez’s teammate, Ross Chastain, who is tenth in the standings with an average finish of 13.5 and 108 laps led.
“The last month, I feel like I’ve probably had one of the slowest cars I’ve had in my career, at least at Trackhouse,” Suarez said. “We have work to do. We think we know how to fix it and we are working hard at it.”
Suárez laughed when he admitted that he was surprised by the speed issue. However, not at first. The team was going down a particular path for a while that didn’t work and affected their speed. But even after reversing course, he hasn’t helped and is now a concern.
“I would say (for) a month and a half, it wasn’t surprising because we were trying things out of the ordinary, just trying different things,” Suarez said. “A few weeks ago we said, ‘Okay, this isn’t working, let’s get back to normal and see exactly where we are.’ And it didn’t work either. There are still a lot of things in the works for (Siderski’s) system and applying a lot of different processes on our team, but it’s no secret that in the last few weeks we’ve been in 30th place and we’ve been finishing in 25th place with him . So we have some work to do.
“This is what I told my team: ‘We have two months to figure it out.’ I said two months because I’d like to have a month before the playoffs to get into the mentality of (competing in) the playoffs, because if we think we’re going to make the playoffs and flip a switch and be great, that won. It will not happen. It doesn’t matter whose team it is; that does not exist. We have to be ready when the time comes.”
Keynote USA
For the Latest Sports News, Follow @Keynote USA Sports on Twitter.