Mexican driver Daniel Suarez has all the pressure heading to home race

Bob Pockrass

FOX Motorsports Insider

Racing in his home country alone would put pressure on Daniel Suarez.

Daniel Suárez waves to the crowd during introductions prior to the running of the NASCAR Cup Series Cracker Barrel 400

Entering the NASCAR Cup Series debut in Mexico City sitting 28th in the standings and without a contract for next season just adds to the pressure the Trackhouse driver will face Sunday at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

“It’s not the first time that I’ve been in this position. Definitely the first time with the Mexico race, but it’s not the first time that I’ve been in the position that we have to win or in the position that we have a contract negotiation in the middle [of the season],” Suarez said.

“It’s definitely a distraction. I won’t sit here and tell you that it doesn’t really matter. I’m trying to be as smart as possible and to put all this stuff on the side and just do my thing on the track.”

The 33-year-old Suarez, who grew up in Monterrey, is the only Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR national series race. He has won two Cup races, three Xfinity races and one truck race. He is the only foreign-born driver to win a NASCAR national series title, which was the Xfinity Series in 2016.

Daniel Suarez walks onstage wearing a Lucha Libre mask during driver intros prior to the NASCAR Cup Series All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway

The Xfinity Series raced at the Mexico City track but with a different layout from 2005 through 2008. But this will mark the first Cup race in Mexico City and the first Cup points race outside the United States since 1958 when the Cup Series raced in Toronto. Cup held exhibition races in Japan from 1996 through 1998.

The Mexican fans obviously have someone to root for in Suarez, who has been to Mexico six times in the last year to promote the race. He went to a premiere of the NASCAR series on Netflix there, and fans who had been following him since he drove in the NASCAR Mexico Series from 2010 through 2014 showed up.

Suarez believes those who followed him 15 years ago and those who just will see there is a Mexican driver competing will cheer for him.

“There are going to be the new fans, the fans that don’t really know me and they just love racing and they know that there is a Mexican driver. They’re going to be there with me and there is going to be these fans that they’ve been supporting me in all my journey,” Suarez said.

For those who have followed Suarez’s career, they have seen him go through the ups and downs of driving for four different Cup teams. He has been at Trackhouse Racing since 2021 and signed a one-year extension last year.

The year so far has been disappointing for Suarez, who won the second race of the year in 2024 and advanced to the second round of the playoffs. His average finish of 21st is three spots worse than last year. He has averaged 10 top-10 finishes a year the last three years but is on pace for seven this year with three in the first 15 races.

Suarez is determined not to let those struggles or wondering where he will race next year ruin the Mexico race experience.

“The Mexico race is something that I’ve been hoping and waiting on for many, many years, and I’m not going to let anything else from outside take that week and that moment from myself,” Suarez said.

“We have to just continue to put one foot in front of the other and continue to move forward. I think that in Trackhouse, we have found some decent speed in the last few weeks, so that’s promising, and hopefully we can continue to move in that direction.”

In his ninth full-time Cup season, Suarez has 302 career Cup starts, and if he doesn’t ink a new deal with Trackhouse, there could be few opportunities for a comparable organization.

A win can change everything, and road course races typically are ones where Suarez has shown strength. His first Cup victory came at the road course in Sonoma, and the next five Cup races include road-course races at Mexico City, Sonoma and the Chicago street course.

“We just have to execute,” Suarez said. “We have to do the little things right, and I believe that we’re capable of doing that. … We win next week, and all these conversations are going to be out of the window.”

Suarez said he plans to arrive in Mexico on Tuesday, June 10. Then, he’ll do many of his public appearances over the next three days. Once cars hit the track on Friday, he needs to focus on trying to do all the little things right.

“There is going to be more on my plate [in Mexico] and I have to accept that,” Suarez said. “With that being said, I have to protect my space for the competition stuff because if we don’t do the competition stuff, everything else, it doesn’t really matter.

“We have to put a balance on everything. … [So by] Friday, I can try to focus as much as possible only on racing. I’m going to have still a few things here and there, but for the most part, it is going to be racing.”

Suarez will have Mexican communication company Telcel on his car.

“For many years, I never had a sponsor deal with a company from Mexico because I wasn’t racing there,” Suarez said. “So right now that we’re going to be having an event down there, it opens a whole new world of opportunities and that’s great, not just … obviously for me, but for the entire sport.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.