Heading into NASCAR’s showcase event for his home country, Daniel Suárez is in an awkwardly familiar (and admittedly distracting) position, but also in an extraordinarily new environment.
The Trackhouse Racing driver remains unsigned beyond the 2025 season, which isn’t unusual. Suárez was in a contract year last season before re-signing, and he also went through extension negotiations in 2022 (re-signing shortly after his first Cup win at Sonoma Raceway).
The 2016 Xfinity Series champion is accustomed to blocking out the noise and speculation to produce results — but never in front of hundreds of family and friends, much less the thousands more who will be cheering him in the June 14 and 15 races at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez course.
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“It’s not the first time that I’ve been in this position, though definitely the first time with the Mexico race,” he told reporters Wednesday during a media availability. “But it’s not the first time that we have to win or have a contract negotiation in the middle (of a season). Definitely, it’s a distraction. I won’t sit here and tell you that it doesn’t really matter. It’s definitely a distraction, but I’m trying to be as smart as possible and to put all this stuff on the side and to just do my thing on the track. And already the Mexico race is something that I’ve been hoping and waiting on for many, many years, and I’m not going to let anything else from outside take that week and that moment from myself.”
Suárez will get a jump on his myriad commitments by arriving in Mexico City next Tuesday for three days of sponsor obligations before practice Friday on the 15-turn, 2.429-mile circuit. The Monterrey, Mexico, native typically visits his extended family there once or twice annually. He has already made five trips to Mexico in 2025 to promote the inaugural Cup Series event.
“Once we get into the race, we don’t want to deal with any of this stuff, and I just want to focus in and have fun driving race cars,” he said. “There is going to be more on my plate just by nature, just being the local guy, the very first race ever in Mexico City in the Cup Series. I have to accept that. With that being said, I have to protect my space for the competition stuff because if we don’t do the competition stuff right, everything else doesn’t really matter. So we have to put a balance on everything.”
Though ranked 28th in the points standings with three top 10s (most recently 10th last month at Texas Motor Speedway), Suárez is optimistic for Mexico City. His No. 99 Chevrolet has “found some decent speed in the last few weeks,” and teammate Ross Chastain delivered Trackhouse’s first win this season in the Coca-Cola 600.
“We just have to execute,” Suárez said. “We have to do the little things right, and I believe that we are capable of doing that. We just have to continue to move forward. We win next week, and all these conversations are going to be out the window. A few weeks ago, Ross in a post-race interview, he was bitching about the cars and everything that we need to do better. Then he wins a race, and everything is amazing now. So winning fixes everything.”
Trackhouse has yet to announce the 2026 lineup for its three full-time cars. The team has four drivers under contract: Chastain, Suárez, Cup rookie Shane van Gisbergen and rising star Connor Zilisch, the 18-year-old who races full time in Xfinity and part time in Cup (adding two more races Wednesday to his 2025 schedule).
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Among that group, only Suárez is in a contract year, and he answered, “honestly, I don’t know” when asked Wednesday what he wanted in his next deal. He has met regularly with team co-owner and founder Justin Marks about how to improve Trackhouse, which he joined in 2021.
“The trajectory of Trackhouse has been tremendous,” said Suárez, who made the playoffs for a second time last season with a thrilling victory at EchoPark Speedway. “We have learned so many things. I really want to help Justin bring Trackhouse to the next level. I believe that 2022 has been our best year as a company, still. So why is that? Are we missing something? Do we have to change something? What do we need to do better? As a new team, to have your best years that early, it’s kind of uncommon. One of the reasons, I believe, was because of the new car. So I believe that we have to continue to grow.
“Ross just won a race a couple weeks ago, and that’s brought a lot of energy to the team and some more momentum. Before that, it was a little bit of a struggle. So we have to continue to find that speed in a consistent basis, just like the big teams. So we’re having all these conversations.
“I’m going to be quite honest with you: I wish I didn’t have to have these conversations, and I didn’t have these distractions, but it’s part of life, right? Sometimes you have to do several things at the same time. But I’m trying not to think about it too much and trying to work in my job and push as hard as possible for competition and trying to help the team slowly get better and better.”