Denny Hamlin took the checkered flag in Las Vegas after leading 134 of 267 laps, yet while the winner made his way around the track on the cool-down lap, sparks flew elsewhere on the circuit. Once teammates at Trackhouse Racing, Daniel Suarez and Ross Chastain found themselves locking horns after the race. Suarez, now driving for Spire Motorsports, has not hidden his feelings toward his former outfit. Since the season began, he has often found himself racing the Trackhouse cars with extra bite.
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On Sunday, his clash with Chastain appeared to grow out of a scrap on the track. Both drivers ran near the tail end of the top 20 when the sparks began to fly. Battling for 17th place in the closing laps, Chastain drew alongside Suarez in the No. 7 and edged past on the outside. But while passing, Chastain appeared to gesture toward Suarez from the window with a finger.
The No. 1 driver finished P17 while Suarez followed in P18. Tempers then boiled over on the cool-down lap. Suarez pulled alongside Chastain, who responded by driving into Suarez’s car. The duo rolled side by side on the trip back toward pit road before Suarez pushed ahead. Once both cars came to a halt, the drivers climbed out and squared up beside the No. 1 machine. Words flew first, then hands followed.
A brief shove passed between them before crew members stepped in to pull the drivers apart. The exchange carried on for a few moments before Chastain moved away. Speaking after the race, Suarez said the clash grew out of an on-track run-in. “We got together a little bit in corner 2, and he was mad about it. I was having a conversation, and he was always spin out.”
“He just said something. I mean, for some reason, our relationship has always been very weird.” Suarez also suggested that the tension had been there beneath the surface for some time. “Almost like a little bit of two-faced of his part for some reason. And today I saw actually what I thought he had in his mind for a while, but I mean, I don’t have any hard feelings to anyone.”
“I’m just doing my thing, having a great time. But it’s just sad that he thinks that way. But listen, at the end of the day, it’s not my first rodeo. I have had to go through a lot to be able to get to this point,” he continued.
“Our relationship has always been a little weird, almost like a little bit two-faced of his part.”@Daniel_SuarezG on his chat with Ross Chastain post-race.#NASCAR
Presenting Partner: @MyPlaceHotels pic.twitter.com/T0mMkwWUEf— Frontstretch (@Frontstretch) March 15, 2026
But this was not the first time the two drivers had tense moments. Before today, during the race at Sonoma Raceway last July, Chastain drove deep into the final corner on lap 45 of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 and made contact with Suarez. The hit spun Suarez in the hairpin and dropped him from 14th to 29th in the running order.
Suarez voiced his anger over the radio that day, though the sting eased later when Chastain sent word through his spotter that he had misjudged the entry and could not bring the car to a stop in time.
Another on-track incident between the two came during the 2023 race at Circuit of the Americas. On a restart near the end, Chastain tangled with Alex Bowman of Hendrick Motorsports, which then sent Bowman into Suarez, which ended Suarez’s potential top-five run, and he had to limp home in 27th place.
After the race, Suarez asked his crew over the radio where the Bowman and Chastain cars were and sped past several machines on the cool-down lap in search of them as they headed to pit road.
Ironically, both drivers had spoken well of each other not long ago. Chastain said Suarez was the teammate whose outlook off the track most closely matched his own. Suarez, for his part, had appreciated Chastain’s skill behind the wheel. However, their relationship seems to have faded, at least in Vegas.
