Daniel Suarez puts Bubba incident in the past, but ‘sometimes you can cross the line’

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- One week removed from a Bubba Wallace gesture that touched off a testy post-race conversation at Pocono Raceway, Daniel Suarez's arrival in New York's Finger Lakes region was greeted with talk about another finger with a ripple effect. RELATED: Full schedule for Watkins Glen Suarez was in a jocular mood Saturday between Monster Energy Series practices at the 2.45-mile road course in Watkins Glen, saying that he and Wallace remain friends after their late-race aggression last Sunday, Wallace's middle finger flip and their chippy discussion that followed. That pit-road chat spilled over to social media early in the week, but Suarez said he doesn't expect to see any gestures again. "He won't. I guarantee you that," Suarez said with a smile. "We are good friends but sometimes he drives a little bit over his head on the race track, and he's been in wrecks a couple of times. He's been a little bit too aggressive with myself or different situations. I don't get to race him very often, but when I do, he's a little bit too aggressive, which is OK. "I don't have a problem, but sometimes you can cross the line and you can get mad and things happen." [ndmsvideo vid="6064884426001" iframe="true" play="false"] Wallace explained the intent behind his gesture during a Tuesday appearance at Charlotte Motor Speedway, saying that he meant it in a playful manner. "I do it to guys I like and I can race around," Wallace said, mentioning Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. as fellow drivers that he's similarly saluted. MORE: Wallace's side of Pocono dust-up On Saturday, Suarez repeated his mantra that those gestures equal fighting words. He also wasn't buying the "all in good fun" explanation. "He said he was playing, but I'm not dumb. I know he wasn't," Suarez said. "That was his excuse, but that's OK with everybody. We move on and we focus on the next one." But which part of the interaction stirred the most anger: the close-quarters racing or the gesture? "The way that he raced, I know him. That's the way that he does things," Suarez said. "I think that sometimes he's smart, sometimes he's not. The way that he did things and then flipped me, and then I got even more mad when he said that he was joking when I knew perfectly he wasn't. It's all good. It's in the past. We're friends. We have known each other for a long time. There is always that extra confidence in us, we know that we can fight and we can be good the next day. I get fired up pretty quick when it comes to that kind of stuff, as you guys can see." Suarez discarded the notion that his perilous spot in the NASCAR playoff picture may have fueled his irritation. The 27-year-old driver for Stewart-Haas Racing is still looking for his first premier-series win and sits 18th in the standings, just outside of the provisional postseason field. "That thing that, 'Hey, Daniel is getting pressure' or 'the tempers are getting into his head,' but that has nothing to do with it," Suarez said. "I can be leading the championship and I will get fired up as good as I get fired up right now. That's just myself. I've been like this since I can remember."