Daniel Suarez is confident the end of Sunday’s race at Indianapolis was going to be an entertaining fight for the win, but he was too far behind Michael McDowell for it to play out.
“My car actually got better at the end, so I think we were going to have a pretty good shot,” Suarez said after finishing third. “It was going to be fun because I felt that the No. 9 (Chase Elliott) was pretty good, and then he was falling off at the end of the run. The No. 34 (McDowell) was pretty good in the middle part of the run, and I felt I was pretty good at the end of the run.
“So it was going to be a good fight. Disappointed that we didn’t get to see it.”
Suarez’s chance to be in the picture ended on pit road with 34 laps to go. The air hose got stuck under the left front when the jack was dropped and the team headed to the other side of the No. 99 Chevrolet. It was a costly hiccup on the stopwatch as the jackman had to return to the left side and jack the car back up so the tire changer could pull the hose out before the team completed the stop on the right side of the car.
“Just a few different things there, I believe, just looking at it quickly,” crew chief Travis Mack said of how the hose got stuck. “It just had a weird loop in it. Those hoses are really thick and awkward and just had a little weird loop in it. There are three guys involved: you’ve got Daniel stopping in the box, the tire changer who’s holding the hose, and then you got a guy behind the wall throwing the hose.
“It’s definitely a team thing, a team issue, that we’ll work on this week. We’ll just look at the film and see what we can do better next time.”
The Trackhouse Camaro lost time to McDowell and fell behind Chase Elliott in the running order. At the finish, Suarez had cut the gap to 5.7s behind McDowell from the 9s he lost on pit road.
“They were trying to keep me motivated, which I appreciate,” Suarez said of his team. “I love hearing that. It was good. I feel like we did a good job today. If I could rate ourselves today from one to 10, I feel we did a solid eight. But to win you need nine to 10s and today we were an eight, so we just have to be a little better next week.”
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1428]
A victory would have locked the No. 99 into the playoffs, which is what it did for McDowell. Suarez entered Indianapolis five points below the cutline and below McDowell, who was three points out of a playoff spot.
Suarez started from the pole Sunday and led six laps. He finished second to McDowell in the first stage and was third behind Denny Hamlin and McDowell in the second stage.
“We just needed to get to them,” Suarez said. “I felt if I was within [range] like I was in Stage 1 and Stage 2, I think we were going to be good to fight. Unfortunately, we were a little bit too far away in the last stage and I cut that gap — I don’t know how much, but it just wasn’t enough.
“I feel like in the last stint I was stronger than them but not 8s stronger than them. It’s part of it. We have to continue to build. Continue to work. We have a few things to clean up, and I’m sure we’re going to be better.”
There will be a chance for redemption for Suarez at Watkins Glen. Suarez and his team head there riding a wave of momentum off back-to-back top-five finishes and confident they can repeat the strength shown in Indianapolis.
“Absolutely, we feel like we probably gave one up today, for sure,” Mack said. “We had the lead and the car was really good there at the end. I think we lost 9s in the pits; we came out 9s behind those guys and we ran them down within a few seconds. The car was definitely faster the last run, and if we could have come out in the lead there, I don’t think they could have gotten to us.
“But you never know what could have happened. The best thing we can do right now is bring the same car [next week], same speed, and do it again at another road course.”
Justin Marks said Suarez’s path to the playoffs is a matter of winning over the next two weeks.
“He has to win,” Marks said. “He has to win now. He did everything today. He performed today at the highest level that I’ve seen him perform. We had some problems on the pit stops but his pace, his commitment, his fire was exactly why we pay him to do what he does, and he was awesome today.
“It changes the landscape with [McDowell] winning, so now we got to go to Watkins Glen, try to win that race, and if we don’t, we have to go to Daytona and try to win that race. It’s simple as that. It’s a simple thing now.”