Daniel Suarez sets his priorities straight after the ‘extremely disappointing’ Pocono race
Daniel Suarez has scored just one top-10 finish in the last five races.
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Daniel Suarez (Credits: @TrackhouseRacing/Twitter)
Trackhouse Racing’s Mexican sensation Daniel Suarez isn’t having the year he envisioned in 2023. He is 23 points off the playoff cutoff and hasn’t won a race since his maiden Cup win last year at Sonoma. It has severely hindered his previous 16 dreams while his teammate Ross Chastain is getting ready for a deep playoff run after scoring a win at Nashville.
Suarez was in the in-playoff bubble till New Hampshire. His P16 in NHMS and P36 last weekend at Pocono dropped him to 18th in the championship table. Bubba Wallace tagged him during a three-wide fight in the midfield while trying to avoid Joey Logano’s crash. The No:99 team was able to fix the car, but an oil leak forced them to retire.
Ahead of the upcoming Cup event at Richmond, Daniel Suarez pointed out that he was extremely disappointed by the result and was mad. But he has moved on and shifted his focus to Richmond. He has abstained from thoughts about what might occur now or in the future and is entirely focused on the Richmond weekend.
“Extremely disappointed, but you can only control what you can control. You get mad, but you have to forget about it and move on. We are totally focused on Richmond this week and getting a good finish there. There is a lot of racing remaining, and we have to focus on today, not what happened last week or what is going to happen in the future,” Suarez is quoted by Speedwaydigest.com.
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Daniel Suarez believes his team is strong enough to make noise in the playoffs
The Mexican driver noted he is confident about scoring good finishes in the upcoming five races after Richmond. He believes that his team has no excuse for failing to make playoffs, and they have to perfect execution and avoid bad luck to secure back-to-back last 16 appearances.
“We feel like we should be part of the playoffs and that we are strong enough to make some noise once we get in the playoffs. Overall, I think we have fast cars 90 percent of the time, and we have to take advantage of it. We have some tracks coming up where we have run really well. It’s going to be about execution and avoiding bad luck. We just have to do it,” Suarez said.
While Suarez has a shot at making the playoffs in the coming races, the results from the same races last season aren’t confidence-boosting. He finished outside the 15 in all those races other than Glen, where he secured a P5. The uncertainty of Daytona is another huge challenge, and luck hasn’t been on his side the whole season, unfortunately.
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Justin P Joy
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