CHICAGO — With the air now finally cleared, Daniel Suárez feels “relief” with the news that he and Trackhouse Racing will officially part ways after the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. He expressed that after four full seasons in the No. 99 Chevrolet, the chemistry faded and a change was needed after months of knowing he would not return to the organization in 2026.
“I have known this for six or seven months, this was going to happen,” Suárez said before Saturday’s practice got underway. “It’s just like everything in life, things change, people change, companies change, and that’s OK, there’s nothing wrong with that. There just wasn’t really love anymore, but there is no hard feelings at all.”
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Despite earning both of his Cup wins under the Trackhouse banner, Suárez could slowly feel the love fading over time, and the distraction of having an uncertain future in the Cup Series over the past two seasons made it difficult for him to remain a contender.
When asked about what led to both sides drifting apart, Suárez opened up candidly about the factors that led his situation to reach this point.
“Since my new crew chief [Matt Swiderski] came to Trackhouse, he told me a lot of things that he didn’t think were right within the organization and a lot of things that needed to be changed,” Suárez said. “I’ve been very vocal with the team on we need to address this, we need to address that, and I’m not the only one seeing it. There are more people seeing it. I don’t think that’s the only reason. I think there are more things. I just think that lately, there have been things that have made me feel that I’m not as important.”
Knowing open seats for next season are limited, the Monterrey, Mexico, native remains confident he will be on the Cup Series grid next year and has no plans of moving down to the Xfinity Series for a year to reestablish his market for 2027.
“I’m confident about [staying in Cup Series], but by contract, I couldn’t talk to anyone about this, even though I knew it was going to happen for a while,” Suárez added. “Everything is still very early, and there are a lot of things that are in the air still. It’s pretty early. Most of the time, these kinds of moves happen a little bit later. I have had a lot of conversations with a lot of people, and there are going to be opportunities. We just have to see how things play out. I’m not going to lie. I believe that if this was happening next year, it was going to be way easier because next year, there’s a lot of more openings, but there is going to be some, and I’m confident that things are going to work out.
“In my mind, I don’t have anything to prove in the Xfinity stuff. I mean, I love the Xfinity Series. I had probably one of the best weekends of my career, winning in Mexico City in there. … It’s an amazing series. I love it. I like to compete with the best of the best.”
Admittedly, Suárez feels “lighter” having this weight off his shoulders, and though the last few seasons haven’t gone the way he hoped for, he still looks back at his time at Trackhouse with fondness.
“I wasn’t very happy anymore, and it was just a matter of time to end this chapter,” Suárez said. “But at the end of the day, we are still in the middle of the season, so we have a lot of things that we still have to work on with my 99 team. I love the 99 team. It’s probably one of the best teams I’ve ever had, and I’m going to miss that group so much. That group is very special to me.”
Ross Chastain, Suárez’s longstanding teammate, reflected on the impact Suárez had on him when he first signed with the team in 2022 and how they connected on and off the track.
“It’s been incredible. It’s been four years together, my entire time at Trackhouse, and really, once we moved into the Concord building, it was him and I,” Chastain said. “He’s the most like-minded person outside of the car of a teammate that I’ve ever had. We were at the same, I feel like, parts in our careers where we had something to prove — when Justin [Marks, team owner] hired us. We put the time in the gym, weights-wise, and available effort in the gym, we were like, line-over-line the same.”
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His most special memory with Suárez is, of course, the celebration and genuine excitement each shared when the other scored their first career Cup win three years ago.
“Both of us winning, seeing his excitement for me at COTA (Circuit of The Americas), and then me when he won at Sonoma,” Chastain said. “I parked the car where I had to, and then I ran up to the start/finish line where he was celebrating. Just seeing that come full circle for both of us.
“Our path to get to Trackhouse were both relatively similar timelines, I’d say. So I feel like that, just seeing all that pay off with Cup wins, I mean, just can’t get over our first wins, and we were there for each other. We were there leading into that, into both of those wins that year in ’22.”