Less than 24 hours after Daniel Suárez’s heated exchange with Alex Bowman and teammate Ross Chastain at Circuit of The Americas, Trackhouse Racing co-owner Justin Marks joined SiriusXM NASCAR Radio to express support for his drivers’ competitive nature.
After a long day of racing around the 3.41-mile Texas circuit, Suárez was positioned at the front on a late restart with a chance to battle for the win. But it quickly went awry when the green flag dropped and cars frantically made their way through COTA’s daunting Turn 1. Bowman jumped to the inside lane and received a bump from Chastain, sending the No. 48 into Suárez, who saw his winning hopes evaporate.
Following the race, Suárez tracked down the Nos. 48 and 1 — something Marks attributes to the heat of the moment.
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“There’s a lot of emotion on pit road after the race,” Marks explained on SiriusXM. “Obviously, Daniel was just stewing in his emotions on that cooldown lap and it didn’t stop after he hit the 48. You know, he got out of his car and saw Ross there and knew Ross was a part of that train that was coming in and wanted to express his emotions to Ross. It’s part of the competitiveness of the series.”
Still searching for his first win of the 2023 season, Suárez was looking to bounce back at COTA after a similar incident in Turn 1 during the middle of the 2022 race took him out of contention, as well.
“Daniel had a day that was shaping up for him to be able to have a great race,” said Marks. “He was really focused hard on this race all week in his preparations and felt like he had a real shot at winning and I think he was in a position to contend for it. I think, you know, just compound all that and you’re hot, you’re tired and then it kinda just hits the fan at the end of the race — and we just saw that emotion boil over.”
Despite the teammate tension in Texas, Marks chose to look on the bright side.
“But I’ll tell ya,” Marks said. “I mean, I’d rather have two guys mad about losing than two guys that get out of the car and go ‘Oh, well. We’ll go to Richmond.””