CONCORD, N.C. — Ross Chastain offered his perspective on last weekend’s post-race fracas with former teammate Daniel Suárez on Tuesday, saying he had regrets about his actions turning physical but hinting at the fragile, fractured nature of their relationship — even while partnered under the Trackhouse Racing banner.
Chastain had declined comment in the moments after finishing 17th in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, one spot ahead of Suárez. During a Tuesday roundtable at the NASCAR Productions Facility, however, the 33-year-old driver opened up on his frustrations and the reasons behind his reactions, which included a sideswipe of Suárez’s car after the race and a brief exchange of shoves on pit road.
RELATED: Suárez, Chastain spar in Vegas | Cup Series standings
“In the moment, I definitely was hot and angry and would do things different if I had time to think about it,” Chastain said. “Yeah, definitely would not have swerved into him after the race. I didn’t mean to. I would do that different if I could go back, and then I wouldn’t shove him, for sure. I just was over the conversation that he was trying to have, wanted him to leave, asked him to leave, and he didn’t leave and wanted him to back up. Was too close, and just didn’t want to hear anything else he was saying because he wasn’t taking any accountability, and I wanted him to. I’ve known Daniel now for a long time and have lived it inside of our four walls, that there’s, in my opinion, not enough accountability, and there wasn’t post-race. And in the heat of the moment, I reacted definitely worse, and if I had just a few minutes to calm down getting out of the car, after definitely a day of struggling through the mid-teens (position-wise) when we expect more out of the 1 car causes me to just not have as much, I guess, wick able to burn. So unfair in the grand scheme of things to react that way, though, and not right.”
Chastain is running triple-duty this weekend at Darlington, racing in Friday night’s Craftsman Truck Series event for Niece Motorsports, suiting up for JR Motorsports in Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race and wheeling his Trackhouse No. 1 in Sunday’s Cup Series main event, the Goodyear 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Chastain said he had attempted to contact Suárez to offer his thoughts, but that his efforts to connect had been unsuccessful. But Chastain also noted that his relationship with Suárez had been strained long before last weekend’s flare-up. The two had a pair of notable incidents in past seasons (2023 at Circuit of The Americas and 2024 at Sonoma), and Chastain said that they had been on better terms for only “a short period” of time.
“I put all my thoughts into a text and sent it to him, just so I had it like logged,” Chastain said, mentioning also that he’d reserved public comment until seeing replay footage from the race. “That way I could have a minute to type it out and put the verbiage the way I wanted it, and so he knew where I stood, and then we’ve played phone tag since then. So he’s called me, I’ve called him. But again, before this weekend, we don’t get along, and that goes back longer than this weekend, and we got through the end of our time together when we were teammates, but I don’t think it’s bad that I don’t get along with everybody. I don’t encourage people to … you know, thinking back to my childhood and stuff, you’re taught to get along with everybody, but as I’ve grown up, I think in our big-time sport of NASCAR, it’s OK, and he’s a guy that I just do not get along with.
“I don’t agree with the way he handles things, and mainly how he just doesn’t … that’s what made me so mad on pit road, was just that there was no accountability. There was 0% on his side, across not just this weekend. It’s just a bigger thing, and it just all boiled up quickly for me, and we’ll work to handle that better. I just saw red in that moment, and it’s an accountability thing of taking a little … just, I just needed a little slice of responsibility from him, and there’s always a reason why it wasn’t his fault.”
In Las Vegas, the post-race dust-up stemmed from a pair of on-track incidents — one early, another late — between Suárez and Chastain, teammates the last four years at Trackhouse until Suárez’s departure for Spire Motorsports in the offseason. Suárez further documented and explained those run-ins in a Monday vlog on YouTube, showing contact between the two on Lap 2 of Sunday’s 400-miler, plus another near-miss in close competition for 17th place with three laps remaining.
MORE: Power Rankings | Darlington entry lists
The late-race altercation prompted Chastain to offer a middle-finger salute after Suárez squeezed his high-lane pass attempt. “He was mad — understandable. A little mad, that’s fine,” Suárez said. “He gave me the finger for a lap or half a lap, which I think is a little bit unnecessary, but that’s him. That’s fine.”
Suárez said what happened after the checkered flag was “unacceptable.” Suárez indicated that he pulled alongside Chastain’s No. 1 Chevrolet on the cool-down lap to offer a wave or peace sign as a means for taking blame for the late-race incident. Chastain then initiated contact with Suárez’s No. 7 Chevy on the back straightaway, and when the two parked on pit road, they were separated after a brief scuffle and sharp words.
“For me the biggest thing is afterwards,” Suárez said in his vlog. “You know, what happens on the race track, happens on the race track, and that’s racing, right? Everyone’s going to get with another driver once in a while. We’re all competitive, we’re all racing and we’re always threading the needle. That’s part of it. What I was actually pretty upset and disappointed is what happened afterwards. I have known Ross for a long time and I have always known that him and I were very different. We’re very different kind of people, but that’s OK. I have always respected him, but the kind of words that he said after the race, it’s just completely unacceptable. That’s chicken-stuff. That’s not good. I lost a lot of respect for him as a person because that’s just not good. It’s not a good look for him, a good look for the kind of person that he is, I think, and it was just a little bit sad, to be honest.
“I was getting fired up to fight, but what was I going to gain? There’s nothing to gain with that. He’s not the kind of person I really want to fight, but just disappointed.”