CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- For a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series rookie in 2017, Daniel Suarez did an admirable job of keeping the fenders of his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota intact.
Suarez completed 10,084 of a possible 10,581 laps in his maiden Monster Energy Series campaign, a commendable 95.3 percent.
"At the end of the day, if you wreck in the first half of the race, you won’t have a lot to apply to the next time that you go to that track because you didn't have a lot of race," Suarez explained during the NASCAR Media Tour presented by Charlotte Motor Speedway on Wednesday. "So I think that’s always very, very important for me to finish races and to spend time with your team to improve your race cars -- instead of fixing your race cars."
RELATED: Suarez's career stats | Best quotes from the media tour Coming off his 2016 NASCAR Xfinity Series championship, Suarez was elevated to the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota following the sudden decision by Carl Edwards to step away from the sport in January 2017. Suarez started the year with Dave Rogers atop the box, but after five races, Rogers took a leave from the team and Scott Graves took his place in guiding the now-26-year-old's maiden Monster Energy Series voyage. The No. 19 team has changed its top two engineers and its car chief as well over the past year, Suarez revealed. Suarez finished 20th in the season's final standings with 12 top 10s -- and eight of those came in the season's final 18 races. "We have done some homework, and even if we keep the consistency that we have the last couple months of racing, I feel like we're pretty competitive to make it," Suarez said. "We want to be able to win races and to be competitive in the top five. ... We have done some adjustments from last year to this year, and everyone seems to be really comfortable and seems to be going in the same direction, and I'm very happy to see that. I really can't wait to get into the first few weeks of racing." Contributing: Staff report