Daniel Suárez, the face of NASCAR’s return to Mexico City this weekend — the sport’s first international points-paying event since Canada in 1958 — has become fluent not only in the English language but in the culture that now surrounds him. Yet his path to this stage was anything but easy.
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Unlike many of his peers, Suárez didn’t arrive with a safety net. That uphill climb, marked by grit and perseverance, is precisely what sets him apart as the first Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race.
In a recent installment of 12 Questions with Jeff Gluck, Suárez reflected on one of the most common misconceptions people have about him. And his response was that a handful of years ago, a lot of people thought he came from family money.
Suárez explained that he wished those who doubted his background could have seen where and how he grew up. He even claimed he was sure no one in the garage had it as rough as he did growing up.
Looking back on a defining chapter of his life, Suárez pointed to 2011, the year he arrived in the United States with nothing but ambition. “I was living with friends of friends, and I couldn’t even rent an apartment because I didn’t have Social Security and I didn’t speak English,” he recalled. When asked about the greatest challenge in his racing career, Suárez’s answer surprised many.
“Learning English. I’m being serious. I’ve had a lot of very, very big challenges, but learning English was the one challenge where I was a little bit scared… I knew I didn’t want the language to be the reason why I wasn’t going to have a real shot at it,” he said.
In an interview with Corey LaJoie, back in May, Suárez had recounted similar struggles — nights spent in his friend’s apartment, breaking down in tears. He had no command of the language, no money for food, and at times couldn’t even afford to call his mother, only to hear her crying on the other end of the line.
Those moments of raw struggle are why mastering English and earning U.S. citizenship carry such deep personal meaning for him.
Now, as he gets ready to race on home soil, Suárez stands on the brink of another milestone, ready to deliver the performance his country has long dreamed of, and perhaps, inspire the next chapter in Mexico’s NASCAR legacy.
