Making a breakthrough in an American sport is never easy, but Daniel Suarez has proved that wrong. The Monterrey native didn’t just dip his toes into NASCAR top level; he dove headfirst into the deep end, becoming the first Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR national series race and, later, a Cup series race. His most recent domination of the Chilango 150 has brought him back into the spotlight.
But success hasn’t come without setbacks. After a promising start, Suarez hit a rough patch in the Cup Series, bouncing between teams and struggling to find consistent form as his head finally cleared following a solid run at Mexico, Suarez realized something much deeper.
Daniel Suarez’s eye-opening Cup reality check
When Daniel Suarez first arrived in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2017, expectations were sky high. Fresh off his 2016 Xfinity Series championship with Joe Gibbs Racing, he was held as the next big thing. He was thrown straight into the fire with JGR after Carl Edwards’ sudden retirement. Suarez had little time to adjust. He ended his rookie season 20th in the points with one top five and 12 top 10 finishes. Not bad for a newcomer, but far from the standard set by Gibbs’ elite machinery.
In a recent interview with Dale Earnhardt Jr., Suarez opened up about the harsh transition. He went on to reflect, “When I won the championship, it was amazing. Honestly, I thought to myself, ‘Man, we have to go Cup racing. Cup racing is going to be great.’ And then in Cup, obviously, it’s a completely different level. Because in Xfinity, when you have a rough day, you can still run top five, top 10 sometimes, if you’re good enough.”
However, reality hit hard. That cold dose of Cup reality began to wear on Suarez as he struggled to keep up, not just with the competition but also with the expectations that came with his rapid rise. He added on saying, ” In Cup, when you have a bad day, you’re running 25th, 30th. So the competition is just a completely different level. You know, the best drivers are there, best crew chiefs, best pit crews, best engineers—best of everything. Car chiefs, everything—the best is there.”
The pressure only grew on Suarez as he bounced from one top-tier team to another. His stints at JGR, Stewart-Haas Racing, and Gaunt Brothers Racing were turbulent, marked by flashes of potential but marred by inconsistency and short leashes. It wasn’t until 2021, when he joined the newly formed Trackhouse Racing, that he finally found some sense of stability. But by then, the most important lesson has already been seared into his racing psyche.
“You couldn’t rely on talent only.” These five words have shifted Suarez’s mindset altogether. The 33-year-old admitted that he hadn’t fully appreciated how much off-track synergy mattered until recently. In the Cup series, even the best drivers are only as strong as the team surrounding them. He went on to say, “So I started to realize that you couldn’t rely on talent only. You needed to rely on everything else, too. You needed to be good, but you needed to have a good group of people around you. You needed to have good leadership, people in the team pushing you, and trying to make you better. There were a lot of things in there. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, I just didn’t feel like I fit in several organizations.”
Suarez went on to reflect on how the debut Cup Series was at none other than the Daytona 500. It is arguably the toughest stage to be a rookie. The No. 99 driver had qualified poorly in his first-ever stint in 2017, starting in 19th position after finishing 15th in a single-car qualifying and 11th in his Duel race. Despite battling hard, he was swept up in a massive lap-143 crash triggered by Jamie McMurray and ultimately finished 29th, recording just 141 laps completed due to the wreck. This tough opener served as an early lesson in cup-level intensity, setting the stage for the growth and hard-on resilience that would come to define Suarez’s career.
He goes on to reflect, saying, “Sometimes, you know how this is—sometimes it’s about timing, right? And I felt like, for some reason, my timing was off for years. My first race ever, my first time in a Cup car, was in the Daytona 500 in 2017. So it was a challenge to get up to speed quickly. And there were some challenges along the way. I felt like I needed to learn a lot extremely quick, and I just felt like I was drinking from a fire hose. I just wasn’t having enough.” But things seem to be changing for Daniel with his 2022 Sonoma win and the Xfinity win in Mexico just a few weeks ago. Trackhouse Racing seems to be catching its drift.
Daniel Suarez names his top supporter
Leaving home at 19 to chase a dream isn’t easy, especially when that dream falls in a country where you barely speak the language and have no safety net. Daniel Suarez, reflecting on his close relations, learned that the hard way. Struggling to stay afloat, he often found himself on the phone with his mom, both of them in tears. He couldn’t afford to bring her over, even for a weekend, and he was constantly questioning whether he was on the right path. Those years, marked by uncertainty and loneliness, built a young man with an unshakeable sense of purpose.
While many fans discovered Suárez only in recent years, you might remember the Daniel from 2011 to 2013 — the young driver who couldn’t even communicate with his peers. Daniel remembers, during that time, he forged lasting bonds with drivers like Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, Bubba Wallace, Ryan Blaney, and Corey LaJoie—friends who witnessed his journey from a struggling newbie to a confident Cup Series competitor.
More importantly, Daniel Suarez, without a second doubt, names his top supporter of all time. It was from none other than NASCAR president Steve Phelps. Speaking with Dale Jr., Suarez reflected, saying, “You know, Steve Phelps for me—I mean, this guy to me is like family. I mean, I love this guy. I mean, he was in my wedding. Steve Phelps and I—we built actually a very, very strong bond in 2020, because he was a true friend. He was a true friend, just giving me support, telling me to stay positive, to keep pushing, ‘This is going to work out,’ and he was one of the reasons why I kept pushing with everything I got.”
Today, that struggle fuels Suarez’s fire. The relationships formed, both in the paddock and the boardroom, aren’t just convenient connections; they are forged through years of shared sacrifice, language barriers, late-night doubts, and relentless perseverance. One thing is clear: Daniel doesn’t take his place in the top garage for granted because he knows what it took to get there.
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