Daniel Suárez is down $50,000 now, but at least he’s a sense of humor about it.
Following Sunday’s road-course race at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, NASCAR on Wednesday dropped a hefty behavioral penalty against the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet driver, fining Suárez $50,000 for violating the rule book. He did not, however, lose any points in the standings.
Specifically, NASCAR penalized Suárez for running into the backs of Ross Chastain’s and Alex Bowman’s respective cars on pit road after the cool-down lap following Tyler Reddick’s victory. As they entered pit road, Suárez bumped Trackhouse teammate Chastain out of the way before rear-ending Bowman multiple times.
It was a dangerous sequence of events, and thankfully, Suárez didn’t injure anyone.
#NASCAR fines Daniel Suárez $50,000 for running into cars on pit road. No points penalty. pic.twitter.com/g2nrjY8Mc5
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) March 29, 2023
NASCAR isn’t a huge fan of intentional contact. But it really isn’t going to tolerate intentional and repeated contact on pit road after the race has ended. So although Suárez was not happy, particularly with Bowman, NASCAR wasn’t pleased with the dangerous way he expressed his frustration.
And following the news of Suárez’s fine, the Trackhouse driver responded with a joke in a now-deleted tweet:
A perfect response to being docked $50,000 — even if he (or others) didn’t think so.
But hopefully this means he’ll be less inclined to make intentional contact on pit road after a race.
So what prompted this post-race move from Suárez? It goes back to a late restart during the COTA race when Chastain got into Bowman and then Bowman into Suárez.
Suárez’s frustration seemed to stem from a double-overtime restart that saw him go from inside the top five down to a 27th-place finish after contact in the braking zone entering Turn 1. Chastain bumped Bowman into Suárez, sending the seventh-year veteran into 2017 Cup champion Martin Truex Jr., spinning Truex and flattening Suárez’s right-front tire. Bowman and Chastain continued on to finish in third and fourth place, respectively.
"Hey, where is the No. 48 and No. 1?" Listen in on the No. 99 team during the final and cool-down laps at COTA. #NASCAR #RaceHub pic.twitter.com/eiQjjaoImF
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) March 28, 2023
