NASCAR CUP SERIES
WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL
GO BOWLING AT THE GLEN
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 14, 2024
DANIEL SUAREZ, NO. 99 FREEWAY INSURANCE CAMARO ZL1, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at Watkins Glen International.
Media Availability Quotes:
How has your team been preparing for the new tire that you guys are going to have this weekend? I know you haven’t been on track yet, but how have you guys been preparing for what could be three seconds of falloff?
“Yeah, it’s a little bit tricky. I was fortunate enough to be here for the tire test a couple months ago, and I believe – I’m not 100 percent sure, but I’m 90 percent sure that all three drivers that were here, including myself, all spun out with this tire because the falloff was pretty big. But it’s going to create good racing. Obviously at the time during the tire test, we didn’t know what air pressures this tire likes. Since then, we’ve made some adjustments in the car to better. But overall, the tire is going to falloff more, which is going to create a better strategy when it comes to the stages and things like that. So yeah, we believe that we’re very well prepared. We’ll see where we stack up with everyone else.”
Juan Pablo Montoya is going Cup racing this weekend. How much are you looking forward to being on the same track as him?
“Yeah, I had an opportunity to meet Juan a long time ago. He’s an amazing racecar driver. Something I like about him is how versatile he is. He drives everything, or he used to drive everything.. from Formula 1, to NASCAR, to Prototypes.. things like that. He’s an amazing talent. I’m very happy to have him back. I had the opportunity to talk to him yesterday at the airport. But yeah, he’s excited. Obviously a lot has changed since he was here.. a lot. Not just in the cars, but with the drivers. So I’m really looking forward to see how it goes this weekend.”
Where did you meet him?
“I can’t remember.. probably at a race track somewhere. Yeah, probably at a race track when he was running full-time and I was just coming up through the series. At the time, I didn’t speak English and luckily he spoke Spanish to me (laughs).”
Where did you guys spin out during the test?
“I can’t remember where (Austin) Cindric spun out. I spun out entering the carousel and right at the entry of the bus stop with this particular tire. There were two tires that were very soft and they had a lot of falloff, and this was one of them. Yeah, after 10 or 15 laps, there was a big falloff. With that being said, maybe the cambers were not correct for these tires. Maybe the air pressure was not correct for these tires. So I’m pretty sure we’re going to be much better now. But still, a softer tire is going to falloff more. I think that’s a good thing. I like that.. a big falloff, I think, creates better racing.”
Had the track changes been made before the test, with the recessed rumble strips in turn one and the different bus stop?
“It did.. only like 20 percent of them. The reason why they increased them so much more is because we had those conversations at the time, that the two lanes weren’t doing anything. We were just going across them and it was exactly the same thing. So we had a conversation at the time a couple months ago, that if you really want to stop us, you have to do the entire thing. That’s what they did, and I felt like that was the right thing to do. So yeah, I believe that the ARCA guys and the Xfinity guys maybe have a shot to use it a little bit more than we will because they’ll have more tire and a harder tire. But I feel like in the Cup stuff, we’re going to pay a bigger penalty. That’s what I think.. we’ll find out in a couple of hours.”
How do you imagine that it changes going into turn one, since you can’t get out as wide and you’re not able to use as much of the track? How does that change your entry and approach to everything in that corner?
“Well now, it’s going to be a real corner, you know? Now, you actually have to slow down to make the corner and make an apex. Before, if you watch the restarts – and I spent a lot of time this week trying to watch and understand the restart trends – well, everything is going to be different now. Before, if you guys remember when (Kyle) Larson won here a couple years ago; he just overdrove the entry into turn one, and then both cars just went super wide. Well now, that won’t be an option.. or I don’t think it’ll be an option. We’ll see. But if it is an option, you’re going to pay a bigger penalty than before. I just think that now, you’re going to have to really slow down to make the apex of the corner. Which before, if you didn’t make the apex of the corner, it didn’t matter because you could reshape it somewhere in the Pennsylvania and then come back (laughs).”
You’ve had a great start to your playoffs and you’re coming to a road course. How encouraged are you by everything, and what do you think about the weekend?
“Yeah, obviously it was a good start at Atlanta (Motor Speedway). It was what we were hoping for. You always want a little bit more when you’re in that situation, but besides a win, I felt like it went as good as it could have been. It was a good start. But with that being said, we have another nine races. That was just week one of the playoffs, so we have to continue to stay focused; continue to move forward. We have to continue to learn what we could have done better as a group; myself, the team, everyone. And yeah, then come here to a road course, which obviously I enjoy and do well. I believe that we’re going to be hopefully contending upfront and hopefully we can have another shot at it.”
There will be two Latinos starting in this race. What can you tell us about the diversity and inclusion in the sport?
“Yeah, of course. Obviously being a Latino in NASCAR, for me, is a huge privilege. And also, it’s a huge responsibility. When you were asking the question, I was trying to think about the last time we had more than one Latino in the race. I mean obviously we had Aric Almirola, which is a descendant of Cuba. Juan Pablo Montoya, he speaks Spanish fluently. He grew up in Columbia, so it’s a little bit different. Yeah, I feel very, very fortunate to be one of the Latinos, and be the one that’s been here for a little while. It’s been a huge responsibility and a huge privilege. The Spanish Heritage Month coming up, that’s one of the months that for me personally, is the most fun of the year. As you can imagine, I feel very blessed that here in the United States, we get to celebrate Spanish Heritage Month every single year. It’s amazing. Obviously some of my sponsors, they’ve given me an opportunity to do different things on and off the track. Last week, I don’t know if you saw, but we had a super cool design on my Quaker State racecar. It was actually designed by a Mexican artist. So things like that. I know that last week wasn’t during Spanish Heritage Month, but it was thinking ahead, right? So just feel very, very proud to be here, and I’m very proud to be recognized during Spanish Heritage Month.”
No mic…
“Oh, of course. And really, NASCAR has been welcoming diversity and inclusion for many, many years. The only thing is that now – it always takes somebody to start breaking the mold, you know? Juan Pablo Montoya did an amazing job 10 years ago. It just takes a few people – drivers, mechanics, engineers, pit crew members – to start breaking that mold. For me, I feel very, very proud every time I go to the garage and I see my friends that work at Front Row, 23XI, all these guys are Hispanic and we communicate in Spanish. So for me, they’re not part of my team, but I consider them friends because we are together on this journey of the Latinos and Hispanics in NASCAR. It’s very special. We definitely have an interesting connection, even though we are on different teams, and I hope that just continues to grow. Obviously in the last five to seven years that I’ve been here, it’s definitely grown a lot.”
You come into today 22 points above the cutline. Not knowing how much the tire will falloff, how will that effect your overall strategy?
“Yeah, I mean honestly, the points situation – I’m not trying to really pay too much attention to that. I’m just trying to do the best race that I could possibly do here at Watkins Glen this weekend. And then, in my mind, everything else is going to take care of itself. Am I going to take major risks? Probably not.. I’m not in the position that I have to win the race to be able to advance. I have to be smart, but I also have to do my race. I cannot be thinking about the points because that’s not the best way to race, in my opinion. But yeah, definitely we’re in a good position with the points, but I’m just trying to focus on the race; focus in the car and how I can maximize the potential of our weekend. If that’s enough for a top-five, great. If that’s enough for a win, we’ll take it.
So we’ll see.. we’ll see where we stack up with everyone else.”
Speaking of the points, I get you don’t really look at that or approach the race because of that. But given that you finished so well last weekend, does that impact how you guys decide to attack this race? Do you guys go through what your strategy is before the race, or is it more so you just do whatever your crew chief tells you to do and you trust him?
“I honestly believe – I mean we had a conversation, but I believe that whether we’re plus-22 points or minus-15 points.. to me, we have to attack the race the same way. It doesn’t change anything because you have to continue to maximize what you have. Continue to maximize your points. Continue to maximize your finish. And you still have one more race to go. So it’s not like everything is on this race. If this was the last race.. if this was next weekend, probably you have to look at it as ‘all or nothing’. But we’re not there, you know? A lot of things can happen in two races, as you very well know. We just have to go out there and execute our race; maximize the potential of our racecar. I’m pretty sure that’s going to be pretty good. In the past, this has been a pretty good track for us. We’ve been good here in the past.. we’ve never been great. So hopefully we can be great this weekend.”
We go to Bristol next weekend and that’s been a hard track for you. How many points above the elimination line would you feel comfortable with going into there?
“Like 75 points.. so I can stay in the motorhome (laughs). No, honestly Bristol is one of my favorite race tracks. Every time people ask me, Bristol is one of my favorite race tracks. I wasn’t a fan of the dirt race there, but for whatever reason, I was good at it. We were always good.. better on the dirt than the concrete. But Bristol is one of my favorite race tracks. A few years ago, we were actually very strong there. And for some reason, the last few years have been a struggle. It’s been a struggle with the balance; tires, with this, with that. We’ve put a lot of effort this time around in Bristol, to be able to be better. We know that’s a little bit of a weakness that we have, and we’ve had as a team at Trackhouse for a couple of years. Hopefully we can be better. But when it comes to points, man honestly, I don’t know.. definitely more than 30 points, just to feel comfortable. But if we’re able to improve our package for Bristol and we can run top-15, we’re going to be plenty good, I think.”
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