DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Daniel Suárez enters a new NASCAR Cup Series season — his fourth with Trackhouse Racing’s No. 99 team — with aspirations for a rebound, a new crew chief, and (he insists) no extra pressure beyond the expectations he’s already set. His last contract update — a multiyear extension — was announced before last year’s Daytona 500 Media Day. In this year’s preseason availabilities, those contract questions touched on what his next steps might be beyond 2024.
Suárez’s quest for a return to the Cup Series Playoffs starts this week at Daytona International Speedway, with the season opening in earnest with Monday’s “Great American Race” (4 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). He’ll have new crew chief Matt Swiderski in place atop the pit box, in the hopes of providing a spark to a No. 99 group that notched just three top-five finishes and a 19th-place result in Cup Series points last year.
RELATED: Power Rankings 2024 | Daytona weekend schedule
The crew chief swap is among a handful of recent changes to the Trackhouse stable, which has added plenty of promising talent to its driver-roster pipeline — with New Zealander standout Shane van Gisbergen, former Truck Series champ Zane Smith, and 17-year-old Connor Zilisch among those joining the fold. With prospects waiting for their big-league opportunity — either by expansion or promotion — Suárez said he hasn’t worried about his contract status, placing his preseason emphasis instead on improving performance.
“I think it’s too early for that, and honestly, for me, I don’t really like to talk about that stuff,” Suárez said. “I let my people talk about it, and they deal with that. My focus is on winning races and making my team competitive. That’s all I care about. I’m a big believer that if I take care of my thing and you take care of yours, things are gonna work out. But I have to focus on that. I cannot have my mind on an extension or what is going to happen in two years or whatever. My next contract, my mind has to be on performance, my mind has to be with the sponsors, my mind has to be on how we’re going to be able to make this team a winning team, and that’s what I’m thinking right now.”
Suárez missed the 16-driver postseason field, going winless one season after scoring his first Cup Series victory in a breakout 2022. He said the break with former crew chief Travis Mack was difficult, since he had cultivated a strong relationship with him in their three seasons together, but he noted that the new pairing was just part of the puzzle — with small changes in multiple facets of the team’s makeup.
“I’m seeing something different from this team, and I can already see what we’re gonna be able to do this year, and nobody else can see this yet but myself,” Suárez says. “Just in the same way that in 2021, I said Trackhouse is on their way because they are seeing this in a different way, and right now everyone sees what I saw three years ago. I’m seeing something different in the 99 team, and I believe that everything, all the work, all the adjustments that we did on the 99 team in the offseason, they’re going to be able to pay off, and I think that we’re gonna see the strongest season on the 99 team that we’ve ever had in the last few years.”
The season began with divided emotions for Suárez, who won in his return to the NASCAR Mexico Series at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but failed to qualify for the Busch Light Clash main event on the Cup Series side. During time with reporters, Dustin Long of NBC Sports pointed out a connection to Suárez, noting that the last two Daytona 500 champions — Austin Cindric and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. — had failed to make the Clash field before winning the “Great American Race” two weeks later.
“Let’s make it happen,” Suárez said, recalling that he paid extra attention to the Harley J. Earl Trophy on display during his media rotations this year. “I can tell you that to me, it (would mean) as much as winning the championship. Winning this race as the first-ever Mexican driver to put your name on that list of legends. I mean, I was actually earlier, I was reading every single one of the years, all the drivers that have won this amazing race. It’s crazy, man. I can’t even think what it will mean. I don’t think I can describe it. I know we all have an opportunity. I know I’m going to have a fast car. I know I have a good pit crew. I know I have a very smart crew chief and I know how to prepare myself, so we’re ready.”
