NASCAR Cup Series: When will Daniel Suarez earn his first victory?

By Asher Fair | Jun 22, 2018

DOVER, DE - MAY 05: Daniel Suarez, driver of the #19 STANLEY Toyota (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images) /

In nearly one and a half NASCAR Cup Series seasons driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, Daniel Suarez has not yet won a race. When will he do so?

Daniel Suarez, 26, became the first Mexican driver to race full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series when he did so for Joe Gibbs Racing in his rookie season last year. Prior to last year, he had never started any races in the Cup Series.

Suarez moved up to the Cup Series as a full-time driver in the 2017 season as the driver of the #19 Toyota after he won the 2016 Xfinity Series championship driving the #19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

In the 2016 Xfinity Series season, Suarez became the first Mexican driver to win a NASCAR national series race when he won at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan prior to the halfway mark of the season. He added two more victories en route to winning the 2016 Xfinity Series championship, and he also won a Truck Series race toward the end of the season as a part-time driver for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the #51 Toyota.

By winning the 2016 Xfinity Series championship, Suarez also became the first Mexican-born driver to win a championship in one of NASCAR’s top three series. A win in the Cup Series, which he has yet to earn, would make him the first Mexican driver in Cup Series history to win a race. When will he pull it off?

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Joe Gibbs Racing have been strong in both of Suarez’s seasons with the team. Last season, Kyle Busch finished in second place in the championship standings in his #18 Toyota with five victories. Denny Hamlin advanced to the round of 8 in the playoffs in his #11 Toyota with two victories. Matt Kenseth advanced to the round of 12 in the playoffs and earned his first victory of the season in the round of 8 in his #20 Toyota.

Suarez was the only Joe Gibbs Racing driver who did not win a race last season. He recorded 12 top 10 finishes and one top five finish. That one top five finish was a third place finish at Watkins Glen International in Watkins Glen, New York. He was the team’s only driver who did not make the playoffs and finished in 20th in the championship standings. All three of the team’s other drivers finished the season in the top seven in the standings.

So far this season, Joe Gibbs Racing already have half of what their win total was last season with four victories. However, all four of those victories have been victories by Busch, so Suarez isn’t the only driver on the team without a victory, as Hamlin and Erik Jones, who replaced Kenseth, have not won yet, either.

But of Joe Gibbs Racing’s four drivers, Suarez sits the lowest in the championship standings in 21st place. He has four top 10 finishes and one top five finish, with that one top five finish being a third place finish at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Delaware. The next closest driver to him in the standings is Jones, who currently sits up in 14th.

For Suarez to win a race, he is going to have to become more consistent. At this point, he rarely runs toward the front of the field even though he is now in his second season driving for one of the sport’s top teams. He needs to start winning in order to stay with Joe Gibbs Racing in the long run, but the odds of that happening in the near future are certainly not the greatest.

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Now that he is nearly one and a half seasons into his career as a full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver, is Daniel Suarez relatively close to winning his first race in the series? When will he become the first Mexican driver to win a Cup Series race? Will he do so in one of the remaining 21 races of the 2018 season or perhaps even in one of the remaining 11 races of the regular season?

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