Daniel Suarez salvages playoff hopes despite dreadful Bristol showing

Daniel Suarez started 35th at Bristol and never made much progress as he battled an ill-handling No. 99 Chevrolet. He fell off the lead lap early and spent the majority of the race outside of the top-30. By the time the checkered flag flew, he was four laps behind but still had a reason to smile as he advanced into the Round of 12 by 12 points. 

“It was a struggle,” said Suarez. “Since yesterday when we unloaded the car for first practice, we just didn’t have the speed. As you know, with a short amount of practice, qualifying, and going to the race, if you don’t have speed out of the trailer, it’s very, very difficult to bring it back to speed. We made it better, but it wasn’t good enough. We were running 30th, 28th, 32nd all night long, and that’s what we had.”

How did he advance with such an abysmal showing? Well, he relied heavily on the 36-point cushion he built up before Bristol, earned through a runner-up finish at Atlanta and a decent showing at Watkins Glen. But more than that, misfortune visiting Martin Truex Jr. once more made things a bit easier for him in the closing laps as he managed to keep Ty Gibbs at bay.

Holding back Gibbs

“You know, I can only control so much,” continued Suarez. “I can only control what the 99 car can do and everything else is out of my hands. At one point there, I felt bad for the 54 [Gibbs] because I had to hold him back quite a bit and he got passed, but I had to do that. I wasn’t fast enough to run away from him, so I had to play games to be able to affect him as much as possible in a clean way.”

That strategy worked out well as Gibbs got to within four points of Suarez before burning up his tires in a futile effort to pass him. In the closing laps, Gibbs lost several spots and fell to 15th in the final running order. 

Suarez can breathe, but only for a moment. As the points reset yet again for the Round of 12, he is now inside the elimination zone for the start of the next three-race stretch, six points out. Luckily for him, the first rounds mirror each other with another drafting track (Talladega) and road course (Charlotte Rova). Both of Suarez’s wins at the Cup level came at such tracks — Atlanta and Sonoma.