While focus at Richmond Raceway was on the controversial win by Austin Dillon and Goodyear’s option tires, a milestone was crossed at the other end of the top-10. Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez not only earned his fourth career Stage win thanks to the track position gained from the option tire, but he also earned the 200th top-10 finish by an internationally-born driver in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Crew chief Matt Swiderski raised eyebrows when the No. 99 Choice Privileges Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 team bolted on the option tires at the end of Stage 1. Suarez restarted outside of the top-15 and climbed through the field in under 20 laps. Although he swapped back to the prime tire, the track position helped the Monterrey, MX native to claim his first stage win in two years.
Suarez maintained that track position throughout the final stage of the Cook Out 400. As the race appeared to go caution-free to the end, he settled in for the long haul. A crash with two laps to go pushed the race into overtime. Like his competitors, Suarez’s team held onto their final set of option tires until the end in case of overtime.
The chaos of overtime saw Dillon punted Joey Logano and hook Denny Hamlin into the outside wall for the win. With the caution and checkered flags waving at the same time, the field was frozen on the final lap. Suarez was credited with a 10th-place finish.
The top-10 not only was Suarez’s 64th in the Cup Series, but the 200th amongst internationally-born Cup drivers. Only 16 drivers born outside of the United States have scored a top-10 finish. As interest in NASCAR continues to grow beyond the United States, and the long speculated Cup race in Mexico or Canada continue to be rumored, the milestone is another that international fans can take pride in and use as inspiration.
“That was a fun race!” Suarez said. “These option tires, if NASCAR and the fans didn’t like it, I don’t know what they would like because they were amazing. The strategy played a huge role in what everyone was doing; what we were doing and everyone’s different agenda. It was fun. I enjoyed it and the No. 99 Choice Privileges Chevy was fast. The guys did an amazing job with the strategy. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out at the end, but we gave it a shot and we ended up with a 10th place finish.”
The 10th-place finish was Suarez’s fifth top-10 of the season. The 32-year-old leads internationally born drivers in top-10 finishes in both the Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series with 64 and 56 respectively. Suarez also leads overall with 136 career top-10s in NASCAR’s three National Touring Series.
The top-10 finish comes one week after Suarez became the first driver to win NASCAR divisions based in three different countries after winning at Interlagos in the NASCAR Brasil Sprint Race division. He won in the NASCAR PEAK Mexico Series at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum earlier this year and Atlanta Motor Speedway in the Cup Series.
