Daniel Suarez could not afford any trouble at Indy as he was tied with Ryan Newman after the Southern 500 in Darlington last week.
It was a difficult day though for his No. 41 team with a qualifying effort of 20th. During the race, things got off to a rocky start early when he slapped the wall off Turn 2 and brought out the caution on Lap 12. Suarez had to come down pit road and make a pit stop so his team could check for potential damage. His car would be fine but he had a lot of ground to make up after restarting in the back.
Due to the incident early on, he was unable to record a top-10 finish in Stage 1 but he did manage to finish sixth in the second stage. The No. 41 team tried to use a different strategy with 34 to go by coming down pit road and hoping there would not be a caution for the rest of the race. If the strategy worked, Suarez would have cycled out as the leader.
However, cautions breed cautions and that would eventually cost Suarez a chance to make it to the PLayoffs. From here on out, Suarez will only be able to contend for wins as he missed the Playoffs by just a few points.
“We did a good job, we just didn’t have enough speed,” Suarez said to PRN Radio. “We just have to keep working and we have 10 more races to get it into victory lane.”
