BUY TICKETS: See the races at Texas
It was never any surprise to Daniel Suarez that making his way through the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series ranks as a rookie would be tremendously challenging.
He's finding out that is especially true when you have a crew chief change only five races into your first season. But Suarez said Friday before opening practice at Texas Motor Speedway that already he and new crew chief Scott Graves were feeling more comfortable together in this new situation.
"Everything is just more, you know? More competition, more aggressive, more media, more questions, more answers," Suarez said just prior to Cup practice on the newly paved Texas 1.5-miler.
"Everything is more, so it's just more going on."
When you are driving for the race defending champion Joe Gibbs Racing team and have established yourself as an accomplished driver – as Suarez has -- expectations are naturally high. But there are also lofty goals for the two-time XFINITY Series champion crew chief Graves, too.
RELATED: Suarez hopeful amid crew chief change
For Suarez it's been a case of raising his game while also adapting to an unexpected and major change on his team. Graves replaced Dave Rogers as Suarez's crew chief just last week – the JGR team announcing Rogers was taking an indefinite leave of absence. Graves moves into the position after running Gibbs' highly successful No. 18 XFINITY Series team, where he helped Suarez to the 2016 XFINITY championship.
And while the sudden change atop the box naturally felt a bit disconcerting initially last week at the challenging Martinsville Speedway, Suarez is hopeful things have settled and the two can begin re-establishing their relationship and setting course again.
"Last week there was just a lot going on," Suarez said. "I wasn't very excited to get to the racetrack to talk to you guys, to be honest. There was just a lot going on and I just wanted to get to the racetrack and drive the car and do what I love to do.
"But it was just a lot of stuff going on, a lot of adjustments, a lot of changes, and it was just going to be something different. When you change a key part of the team, it definitely changes something. Now for Texas, I feel like we have more time to adapt and to talk about things and to talk about the racetrack and to talk about the car, and just overall more confident of getting into Texas."
The 25-year old Mexican native Suarez reeled off back-to-back season-best, seventh-place finishes at Phoenix Raceway and Auto Club Speedway in the No. 19 Arris Toyota before the crew chief change -- the first two top-10s of his young rookie season.
MORE: JGR announces Dave Rogers taking personal leave
But last week, in the days following his team's restructure, he crashed during practice at the Martinsville short track and finished 32nd in the race -- his worst showing of the year.
Suarez looked and sounded optimistic Friday about his team's abilities going forward. He was happy to have the continuity this week with Graves and gently reminded that Graves guided him to the XFINITY Series title last year. In fact, Graves was also the crew chief for Chris Buescher when he won a title for Roush Racing in 2015.
Graves' last Monster Energy Series job as crew chief was in 2013 with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. when they won a pole at Atlanta and posted a third-place finish in the fall Talladega race.
"I'm still a rookie. I'm still learning a lot every weekend," Suarez said. "But now, you know, having Scott calling the shots, I feel like he's going to learn a lot, as well. Luckily we have very good teammates that we can lean on, and we can learn from these guys.
"This is nothing new for him, but in the last four years, five years, he hasn't done anything in the Cup stuff, so he's kind of like a little bit -- he's just not very used to everything that is going on in the rules and all these kind of things and to get used to everything.
"It takes time, and I have a lot of confidence that he's going to do well, and we just have to work as a team and support one to the other and to try to be competitive. We did it in the past, and I know we can do it again."