In ‘The Lengthy Run’ vlog, which you’ll be able to watch HERE, Daniel Suarez provided further feedback concerning the on and off-track clashes with Ross Chastain final weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The 2 drivers had been teammates at Trackhouse Racing between 2022 and 2025, earlier than Suarez and the staff parted methods. Now driving for Spire Motorsports, Suarez defined the complete sequence of occasions that led to the post-race confrontation between himself and Chastain, laughing as he known as him his ‘enemigo.’
The preliminary contact
First, the 2 drivers made contact within the opening two laps of the race, with Suarez saying within the vlog: “I really feel like all the pieces type of began on Lap 2, truly Lap 1 and 1 / 4. He crowded me with the #38 [Zane Smith] and he hit me proper there. It wasn’t a giant deal, you recognize. That is a racing deal. I by no means even thought of something, I by no means raced him exhausting due to that or something. I moved on, that is racing. I am fairly positive he did not imply to try this, it is a part of racing.”
The late-race move
A lot later within the race, Chastain started to run Suarez down as he struggled with the left-front tire on his #7 Chevrolet. Chastain handed him to the surface with simply over two laps to go, and there was some very shut racing as he glided by. Chastain then appeared to provide Suarez the center finger out the window as he drove away.
“Three laps to go once I was having this subject with the left entrance tire, he got here and he was passing me. I used to be attempting to race him — it is three laps to go. When he was passing me, I obtained free and I crowded him. We did not contact, he did not hit the wall, no one crashed, no one misplaced a place. All the things was nice. However clearly, he was mad. Comprehensible, a bit of mad. That is nice. He gave me the finger for a lap or half-a-lap, which I feel is a bit of bit pointless. However that is him, that is nice.”
Cooldown lap contact
Chastain went on to complete seventeenth, and Suarez crossed the road in 18th. On the cooldown lap, Suarez drove alongside Chastain, and waved to him. Chastain then doored Suarez, and in keeping with the Spire driver, Suarez was attempting to apologize for the shut name.
“He was simply tremendous mad,” continued Suarez, who raised some security issues. “He hit me on the cooldown lap, which I feel is tremendous unacceptable, as a result of at that time, we already free our belts and all these type of issues. Some folks even open their belts fully, in order that’s not good. For me, the most important factor is afterwards…”
Drivers have been penalized for cooldown lap contact earlier than, together with Bubba Wallace at Chicago, and even Suarez himself, who bumped Chastain as they entered the pits after a race in COTA in 2023. Whilst teammates, they’d a few tense moments.
Pit highway confrontation
However again to Vegas this previous weekend, issues spilled over right into a tense pit highway confrontation, with Suarez approaching Chastain, who gave the impression to be fairly agitated. They had been separated after placing arms on each other, and that was basically finish of it.
“What occurs on the race observe occurs on the race observe,” mentioned Suarez. “That is racing, proper? Everybody goes to get into it with one other driver on occasion … that is a part of it. What I used to be truly fairly upset and disillusioned is what occurred afterwards.
“I’ve identified Ross for a very long time, and I’ve at all times identified that him and I had been very completely different. We’re very completely different type of folks. That is okay, I’ll at all times respect him. However the type of phrases that he mentioned after the race is simply fully unacceptable. That is rooster stuff. That is not good. I misplaced a variety of respect for him, as an individual, as a result of that is simply not good. It is not search for him, it isn’t search for the type of individual that he’s, I feel. And it was just a bit bit unhappy, to be trustworthy. I actually needed to — I used to be getting fired as much as combat, however what was I going to achieve? There’s nothing to achieve with that. He is not the type of individual I actually wish to combat. However yeah, simply disillusioned.”
Suarez did not point out what was mentioned in addition to saying that Chastain denied hitting him on the cooldown lap, and Suarez additionally addressed the concept that he’s actively concentrating on Trackhouse, as he is additionally had some run-ins with the opposite two drivers on the staff early within the 2026 season.
“Pay attention, lots of people suppose that I am attempting to focus on Trackhouse, and I am not even serious about that,” asserted Suarez.
The vlog, which started final 12 months with the assistance of spouse, Julia Piquet, is generally weekly, however Suarez famous that they are going to be choosing and selecting which races to spotlight sooner or later, with the subsequent deliberate vlog centered across the Bristol race weekend.
The complete video that includes Suarez’s feedback might be considered beneath:
Learn Additionally:
We would like your opinion!
What would you wish to see on Motorsport.com?
– The Motorsport.com Group
