Daniel Suarez Breaks Silence on Trackhouse Racing’s Recent Struggles & Why the Team “Cannot Afford to Be Running Like This”

Trackhouse Racing made a strong breakthrough in 2022, their second year in the Cup Series. Ross Chastain joined and finished the season in P2 with two wins, while their first driver, Daniel Suarez, wrapped up his sophomore year with the team in P10. However, the momentum has since cooled.

Chastain slipped to P9 in the subsequent year and then to P19 last season, while Suarez dropped to P19 in 2023 before rebounding slightly to P12. This year, too, the start hasn’t met expectations. Suarez has recorded just one top-five and two additional top-10 finishes, while Chastain has logged two top-fives and four more top-10s.

Ahead of the Kansas race, Suarez acknowledged the team’s rough patch. He pointed out that other teams have simply found more speed, and that has left them playing catch-up. Still, he remained cautiously optimistic, saying their race-day performance has shown flashes of improvement.

Reflecting on the 11 starts of the season, Suarez commented, “On Sunday[s] we are able to get better because we maximize things in our car. Last week in Texas, after all the fuel wreck, it’s tricky. Yes, we finished in the top-10, but really, how good we were, like, Ross finished second. I think he did an amazing job on every single restart in the last five.”

“But we still need speed, we don’t have speed. It’s not a secret. We are not where we need to be yet,” he added. For now, Suarez remains hopeful that the team is moving in the right direction and can continue to make gains, saying, “We can’t afford to be running like this for very long.” He’ll roll off from P8 at Kansas — a step forward in qualifying — while Chastain will have his work cut out, starting from the rear of the field in P26.

Chastain also recently addressed the team’s ongoing struggles in qualifying, noting that while they are aware of the issue, they haven’t found a solution yet. So far, the team’s best qualifying performance came at the season’s only road course at COTA, where Suarez and Shane van Gisbergen started P5 and P6, respectively. Outside of that, all three Trackhouse drivers have consistently started at a disadvantage, often rolling off deep in the field at oval tracks.

 

Chastain’s average finish of 13.55 has kept him within arm’s reach of the top-10 in the regular season standings. However, with an average starting position of 23.5, he’s constantly having to dig himself out of a hole. Suarez hasn’t fared much better — his average finish sits at 19.7, and he starts, on average, from P25.9. Currently, Suarez ranks P25 in the standings.