2-Headed Monster: Will Daniel Suarez vs. Trackhouse Reach a Boiling Point?

It’s common in NASCAR (and life for that matter) for people to have disagreements and argue with each other. But it’s more prominent when a driver contends with his former teammates off the racetrack.

Daniel Suarez and his former Trackhouse Racing colleague Ross Chastain had some choice words with each other after the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this past Sunday (March 15).

Will the tension between Suarez and his previous team boil over? James Krause and Joy Tomlinson offer their points of view.

Suarez and His Former Teammates Bound To Be A Thorn In Each Other’s Side

Racecar drivers aren’t famous for their short memories, only short tempers.

Fans don’t have short memories either. They’ll remember the confrontations former Trackhouse teammates Suarez and Chastain have had in the past. Suarez got into a wrestling match with current teammate Michael McDowell during a qualifying session at Phoenix Raceway back in 2019. Chastain landed a punch on Noah Gragson after a race at Kansas Speedway in 2023. In the days and weeks to follow, things seemed to de-escalate themselves.

In the days and hours after the two former cohorts had a confrontation at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, things have only ramped up. Suarez told SiriusXM on Tuesday that he didn’t fight Chastain because he didn’t want to be fined or upset sponsors, but he knew the fight was “not going to last five seconds.” Chastain said he did and said some things post-race Sunday that he regrets, but accused Suarez of having “accountability” issues dating back to their time as teammates.

Clearly the two aren’t splitting a Busch Light at Chili’s anytime soon, but maybe things will settle down after a while, right? No. Not if the season continues to play out how it currently is.

After being the black sheep of the team last year, Suarez’s performances have improved considerably. He’s tied for 16th in the standings with, naturally, Shane van Gisbergen. Few spots behind them? It’s Chastain.

Suarez’s average finish this season is 18.2. Chastain’s is 20.6. While Chastain and Suarez were rarely in the same zip code as teammates, they’ve already been around each other a ton as rivals this season, and it’s bound to stay that way.

And it’s not just Chastain who’s had their buttons pushed by Suarez this season. Suarez and SVG got into it during the Busch Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium before the season officially started. It’s only a matter of time before van Gisbergen has his first rival in the NASCAR Cup Series ranks, as he’s also found pace on ovals to hang right around with Suarez and Chastain.

Plus, where is the Cup Series going over the next few weeks? Darlington Raceway, Martinsville Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway: three tracks that are all synonymous with producing bent sheet metal and hurt feelings. And if they somehow get through those three weeks without killing each other, don’t worry. There will still be more than seven months of racing for Suarez, Chastain and SVG to push each other to their limits.

The real question: how does Carson Hocevar get in on the action? – James Krause

It’s Already There

We’re already at the point of tensions letting go, as we saw it Sunday afternoon after the Cup Series race. Suarez went over to Chastain and the pair displayed a major disagreement, with Chastain eventually putting his hand on Suarez before someone stepped in between them.

Chastain later said that he and Suarez “don’t get along” (which it seems like Chastain doesn’t get along with many drivers, but that’s for another day). He mentions that it started even before last Sunday, and if that’s the case, then Suarez’s tensions with Trackhouse already surfaced even before he left the team.

Let’s face it, Suarez’s frustrations (at least with himself) could’ve started before he even joined Trackhouse in 2021.

After he won the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series championship in 2017, he joined Joe Gibbs Racing for the next two seasons in Cup. He tallied four top fives and 21 top 10s during his tenure there before stepping into the No. 41 for Stewart-Haas Racing in 2019.

Suarez only stayed there for a year. Why? Well, that same year, Cole Custer amassed seven wins and finished second in the standings in O’Reilly, so he hopped in the No. 41 starting in 2020. Didn’t help that Custer won at Kentucky Speedway his rookie season after Suarez only had four top fives and 11 top 10s the previous year.

Suarez then took a step down to underfunded Gaunt Brothers Racing in 2020, where he failed to qualify for the Daytona 500 and likely became grateful to even earn a top 20.

Trackhouse was his fourth Cup team, and this year, Spire is his fifth, so just the thoughts and feelings of starting over with a new organization again has possibly built up inside Suarez. He was able to snag a couple of wins while at Trackhouse, so that likely helped his confidence, but after a very down year in 2025, the team had to make the hard decision to let him go.

It’s still early in the year to judge Suarez’s merit at Spire, though he does have a top five at Atlanta Motor Speedway. But as far as his ability to coexist with his former teammates, this is as far as the issues will go. After all, he already had an issue with van Gisbergen in the Clash saying, “it’s just the way that he races.”

Suarez added that van Gisbergen, “has to know that if you’re going to race people that way, people’s going to race you that way.”

Suarez appears ready to move on from his and Chastain’s beef, as he said post-race that “I don’t have any hard feelings to anyone.” So if he’s moving on, then this is the height of the tensions with his preceding team. – Joy Tomlinson