FORT WORTH, Texas — Daniel Suárez enters the race weekend at Texas Motor Speedway with only two top-10 finishes in the first 10 races of the 2025 Cup Series campaign.
At this point in the season one year ago, the driver of the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet was already a winner, beating Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch in a three-wide photo finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway in one of the closest finishes in Cup Series history.
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As they entered 2025, Suárez and team had high expectations. Although he acknowledged that they had not met their goals by this point in the season, the 33-year-old still holds onto those expectations, recognizing that there is still work to be done.
“We all have high standards and high goals,” Suárez said Saturday. “With that being said, we have work to do. We haven’t started the season as consistent and as fast as we would love to as a company. We almost won Las Vegas with a second there. And we have had some spikes of speed, but we have had more spikes of no speed than spikes of speed.
“We changed a lot of things in the offseason, in our process, and in the structure of the team and I don’t feel that we’re seeing the results of that just yet. I think it’s going to come, but we’re not there just yet, so we have to just continue to work and continue to work on the basics, and hopefully we can show on track all the work that we’ve been putting in pretty soon.”
Despite the inconsistent start to the year, the mile-and-a-half style race tracks have produced the strongest performances for the No. 99 Chevrolet team. With a second-place finish at Las Vegas early in the year and a fifth-place finish at the Texas track last year, this weekend could prove fruitful in getting the program back on track.
“I think that actually, if anything, regular mile-and-a-halves, without counting Darlington and Homestead, which are pretty different mile-and-a-halves, I think that we are pretty good along with road courses,” Suárez said. “But we’re still a little bit inconsistent in our speed, you know, and that’s something that we have to work on as a company, as a group, not just in the 99. I believe that we’re heading in the right direction. It’s just taking longer than I was expecting.”
With adversity early in 2025, the Monterrey, Mexico native is staying humble at heart and embracing the coming weeks leading up to the NASCAR Cup Series’ first race in Mexico on June 15 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City.
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The upcoming home race is allowing Suárez to enjoy every moment by bridging the gap and introducing the Mexico City fans to NASCAR as much as he can before Cup cars hit the road course next month.
“Man, honestly, I am over the moon with everything that is happening with NASCAR,” Suárez said. “I feel very, very blessed to be in this position and to be able to be the face for Mexico and for the Latinos in NASCAR is quite a privilege.
“To be living and experiencing the NASCAR dream in this era is quite an honor, and really, a lot of work has been taking place with everything in Mexico. It’s getting closer and closer. It feels very, very real. I feel like it’s just around the corner. Yeah, I mean, extremely happy.”