In the midst of an incredible year on a personal level, Suarez is ready to face the NASCAR playoffs

Daniel Suárez has had a great year on and off the track.

On the track, the Trackhouse Racing driver has earned wins in the NASCAR Mexico Series, NASCAR Brasil Series and earned his second NASCAR Cup Series win in a photo finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway in February. Off the track, Suarez obtained U.S. citizenship, something he had been working toward for a decade, and also married his longtime partner, Julia Piquet.

“It’s probably one of the best years of my life and I don’t mean racing, I mean everything,” Suarez said during the NASCAR Playoffs Media Day. “It’s been an amazing year. (on getting married) I think I’ve exceeded my expectations. I’ve definitely done better than I thought I would.”

What is Suárez’s most outstanding moment?

“It’s very tough, man. If I don’t say the wedding thing, Julia is going to kill me,” Suarez laughed. “It’s not a good question (laughs). I wish I could say a lot, but no, the wedding was definitely amazing. I’m going to win a lot of races in my career, I’m going to win championships. You know, the wedding and the American citizenship were a big thing for me.”

Suarez continued: “It’s been quite a journey, it’s been a hell of a year.”

And it’s not over yet. If the 32-year-old has his way, he’ll have more titles down the stretch and eventually hoist the Bill France Cup at Phoenix Raceway. When the playoffs begin this weekend, Suarez will begin his playoff career in a return to the place where he won earlier this year, Atlanta Motor Speedway.

While he did score a win on the 1.54-mile intermediate/superspeedway hybrid track earlier this year, Suarez knows his previous trip to victory lane doesn’t guarantee him anything this weekend.

“You never know. It’s going to be about 20 degrees warmer than last time, so we’re going to have less grip. So, if you saw cars moving, you’ll see it even more,” said Suarez when asked what to expect in Atlanta. “I think we had a great car last time there and we hope to have an even better one this time. We just have to keep pushing, keep working hard and focus on one race at a time.”

Suarez, crew chief Matt Swiderski and the No. 99 Trackhouse team will focus on just one week at a time during the Playoffs. He is encouraged by the speed his team has begun to find in recent months and hopes to see that momentum continue over the next 10 races.

“We’ve found some things over the last few months,” admitted Suarez. “We’ve definitely gone in the right direction. That said, we’re not winning races yet. We still have work to do. Right now, we can compete consistently in the top 10, but we know that to get to a championship that won’t be enough. We have to keep pushing and keep learning.”

The recent results support the claims of the native of Monterrey, Mexico.

This season, Suarez has posted six top-10 finishes, three of them in his last five starts and four in his last 10 races. If not for a freak accident, in which his car caught fire at Daytona International Speedway, Suarez would likely have had one of the best streaks of finishes of any driver heading into the playoffs.

If you take out the 40th-place finish that forced him out of the race due to a fire at Daytona, Suarez has an average finish of 11.833 over his last six races. That’s 6.5 positions higher than his average finish when you factor in the first 26 races of the season. They’re peaking at the right time, it’s just a question of whether their peak performance will be good enough to put them in the championship hunt. We’ll see.

While it has been an incredible year for Suarez in all aspects of his life, the year began with a cloud of doubt about the future. With a growing and talented roster of young development drivers waiting in the wings and a limited number of places to put them, many expected Suarez to be the odd man out at Trackhouse Racing.

The pessimism surrounding Suarez at Daytona 500 Media Day was palpable. But Suarez proved his doubters wrong a week later with his thrilling win at Atlanta. In August, Trackhouse Racing made his return official in 2025. While the end result was silencing the doubters, Suarez says he doesn’t care much about the noise on social media. He’s focused on one thing, and one thing only.

“To be honest, I’m not trying to prove anyone wrong. I’m just trying to do my thing,” Suarez explained. “People are going to talk. You know, it’s normal. You can’t control that stuff, it’s completely normal. So you just have to do your thing and focus on what you can control. I can’t control what other people think or want to say. Nowadays, people feel extremely safe to express their opinions on social media, that’s how people express themselves. They don’t express themselves in person anymore. But yeah, that’s fine with me. At the end of the day, I’m just doing my thing and working towards my goals with my team. That’s what matters to me.”

Suarez and the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing team will look to accomplish their next goal, which is to advance to the Round of 12 in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. That journey begins with the Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday, September 8 at 3:00 p.m. ET on USA Network.