Suárez, Trackhouse agree to another deal extension
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Daniel Suárez has signed a second extension in six months with Trackhouse Racing, getting a multiyear deal done after landing a one-year contract last August.
The team announced Suárez’s latest extension Wednesday, when media day and pole position qualifying for the Daytona 500 were both on the agenda at Daytona International Speedway. The team declined to release details but will keep the 31-year-old Mexican driver behind the wheel for a third Cup Series season and beyond for coowners Justin Marks and Pitbull.
“Obviously, everyone at Trackhouse Racing is pleased with the performance and professionalism of Daniel both on and off the track,” Marks said in a release announcing the move. “Culture has been of prime importance since the idea of Trackhouse existed only on a whiteboard in an office. Daniel has fulfilled every expectation and we look forward to the future. The best is yet to come.”
Suárez, the 2016 season champion on the second-tier Xfinity Series, has one victory in 215 starts on the Cup Series. He won last year at Sonoma Raceway in California, becoming the first Mexican-born winner ever on NASCAR’s top circuit.
He insisted in August, after signing the one-year extension, that he believed he would get a long-term deal done once the team had more financial clarity regarding NASCAR’s next media rights deal. But as the season opener drew near, Suárez talked to team management about getting the deal done now.
“I’m the kind of person that once I start racing, I like to focus on that,” Suárez said. “I feel like at times it can be a distraction. This time, when we started having all these conversations, I said, ‘Hey, let’s get it out of the way before the Daytona 500.’
“It’s a good day because we are announcing this and I am answering these questions, but I don’t want to have to think about it during the weekend, not really heading into next week.”
Trackhouse competed as a single-car team with Suárez in 2021. That summer, Trackhouse acquired Chip Ganassi Racing’s NASCAR assets and cleared a path for expansion.
Trackhouse moved into its race shop in Concord, North Carolina, in 2022 and fielded cars for Suárez and Ross Chastain. They combined for three wins, 21 top-five finishes and 34 top-10 results last year.
Both reached the Cup Series playoffs, with Chastain ultimately finishing as the runnerup to Joey Logano after being one of the four championship eligible drivers in November’ s season finale at Phoenix Raceway. Suarez was 10th in the final standings, his best finish in six seasons of Cup Series competition — two at Joe Gibbs Racing, one with Stewart-Haas Raccing and one with Gaunt
Brothers Racing before joining Trackhouse.
“The future of Trackhouse is very bright,” Suárez said. “Everybody at Trackhouse believes in me. I believe in Trackhouse since day one. We’re building something great here. I think we have something special going on. It would be silly not to see that and to take advantage of that, to take it to the next level.”