Not surprisingly, NASCAR Cup driver Daniel Suarez’s biggest fan is his wife Julia Piquet, also daughter of legendary driver Nelson Piquet. And when it comes to backing her man, Julia is not afraid to speak her mind.
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In episode two of this year’s Netflix series, NASCAR: Full Speed, Mrs. Suarez let loose in her criticism of Trackhouse Racing and how the three teams are not working well together.
“We sent our boy to war on a donkey holding a wooden spoon,” she fumed, describing what she saw as a lack of support and poor equipment given to Suarez.
Trackhouse’s three Cup drivers are Suarez, Ross Chastain and New Zealand import Shane van Gisbergen. The drivers have failed to work better together on-track, and the teams have also essentially kept to themselves rather than being part of the overall Trackhouse family.
Heading into this weekend’s non-points NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, Chastain is 11th in the Cup standings. But far behind is Suarez in 27th and Van Gisbergen in 35th, the second-to-last full-time driver in the rankings.
That kind of performance does not bode well for Trackhouse. And with Suarez’s future job security a question mark, things need to start turning around dramatically in the next 14 regular season races before the 10-race NASCAR Cup playoffs begin.
Suarez was on a Beating and Banging episode recently and addressed the criticism that his wife received for her vocal comments. To put it mildly, Suarez most definitely had his wife’s back.
“Honestly, I have more of a filter in some situations than Julia,” Suarez said. “But at the same time, she’s not wrong. Everything that she’s saying, she’s right and nothing can say anything about it.
“At that time we did a horrible job with the race car. It wasn’t fast enough and at that time the teams – the No. 1 and No. 99 – were not working together extremely well.
“So some people may not like it, some people may love it but it’s true and since then we have done a lot of work in trials to have the teams working together more. But at that time we were not doing that job.”
In the Bristol race, while Chastain finished with a strong 7th place finish, Suarez finished 33rd and van Gisbergen was 38th (second-to-last).
Suarez said, “I love how Julia says things, the way they are. Her dad (Nelson Piquet) is the same way, so I think that shows who she is as a person. We’re just talking about it, who shows their personalities and that’s Julia. And I respect her for that.”
“I have learned a little bit of the politics in the sport here and there, so sometimes I sugarcoat things a little bit more. That’s why I didn’t say too much after that race, but the reality is that it wasn’t pretty and it’s unacceptable to have a performance like that, especially when the teams are not working together the way that they should,” he added.
Suarez said Trackhouse is working together better since the Bristol debacle, but there still needs better to be cooperation, particularly between Chastain’s and Suarez’s teams.
Suarez admitted to the team paying the price for lacking speed and that working together is the only solution. He said, “Right now, we’re in a little bit of a hole and we have to work very, very hard to get out of that hole. And I can tell you that’s what we’re doing every single day, to be able to get not just the 99 team out of this hole but with the entire Trackhouse (organization).”
In the meantime, if things don’t get markedly better and Suarez misses qualifying for the NASCAR Cup playoffs, don’t be surprised if there’s a major shakeup within the organization at season’s end. Whether that means Suarez, van Gisbergen or both of them wind up moving on remains to be seen.
