NASCAR Cup Series: Daniel Suarez has a lot to prove in 2019
By Asher Fair
With Daniel Suarez set to replace Kurt Busch at Stewart-Haas Racing in the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, he has a lot to prove.
Daniel Suarez is set to replace Kurt Busch as the driver of the #41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford in the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season after spending two seasons, his first two seasons as a Cup Series driver, driving the #19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
After Furniture Row Racing, the team that formed a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing ahead of the 2016 season, announced that they would be shutting down following the conclusion of the 2018 season, Joe Gibbs Racing confirmed that Martin Truex Jr., the former driver of the #78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota, would be replacing Suarez as the driver of the #19 Toyota beginning in the 2019 season.
Suarez’s statistics in his two seasons driving for Joe Gibbs Racing following his championship-winning 2016 season driving for the team in the Xfinity Series were fairly lackluster. He failed to win a race in any of his 72 starts, and he recorded just four top five finishes and 21 top 10 finishes.
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Suarez took just one pole position and led only 75 of the 19,766 laps that he completed in his two seasons driving for the team. He recorded an average starting position of 15.7 and an average finishing position of 17.4, and he failed to finish higher than 20th place in the championship standings (20th in the 2017 season, 21st in the 2018 season).
The 27-year-old Mexican is effectively going from a top-tier team with which he struggled for two seasons to another top-tier team, arguably an ever better team, in the 2019 season, meaning that he will have a lot to prove once he officially starts driving for them.
In the 2018 season, all four of Stewart-Haas Racing’s drivers, who combined for series-high 12 victories throughout the season, qualified for the playoffs. In fact, all four of them advanced to the round of 8.
Specifically, Busch drove the #41 Ford into a sixth place tie in the championship standings. He finished the season having recorded one victory, six top five finishes, 22 top 10 finishes, five pole positions and 664 laps led. He recorded an average starting position of 8.8 and an average finishing position of 12.1.
Meanwhile, in both of his two seasons driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, Suarez was the team’s only driver who failed to qualify for the playoffs. Five drivers have driven for the team since the start of the 2017 season. Suarez is one of the three, the others being Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin, who drove for them in both the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
The other two of these five drivers, Matt Kenseth and Erik Jones, each drove for the team in one of those seasons, with Kenseth driving for them in the 2017 season and Jones driving for them in the 2018 season.
Yet Suarez is the only one of these five drivers who failed to win a race driving for the team in the last two seasons. Busch, Hamlin, Kenseth and Jones have combined for 17 victories during that time.
Suarez went on record and stated that he never felt that he had what it took to win races while driving for Joe Gibbs Racing. Considering the fact that they are one of the sport’s top-tier teams, this statement is hard for many fans to believe. That said, he can prove it by having success driving for Stewart-Haas Racing.
However, if Suarez continues to struggle even driving for Stewart-Haas Racing, it will be hard for there to be any more excuses. The 2019 season will likely be a make or break season for him.
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Daniel Suarez clearly has a lot to prove in his first season driving for Stewart-Haas Racing in the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season. Will he prove his critics wrong, or will he continue to struggle?
Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida is scheduled to host the season opener, the 61st annual Daytona 500, on Sunday, February 17. Be sure not to miss this race, which is scheduled to be broadcast live on Fox beginning at 2:30 p.m. ET, or any of the other 35 races on the 2019 schedule.