Daniel Suarez won Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in a photo finish 3-wide alongside Kyle Busch and 2023 Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney.
Suarez was on the outside of Blaney and Busch as they exited Turn 4. The three drivers crossed the line 3-wide and Suarez would be credited with the win over Ryan Blaney by 0.003 seconds.
”It was so damn close man. It was so damn close,” Suarez told Fox Sports post-race. “It was good racing Ryan Blaney there. Kyle Busch. Austin Cindric was doing a good job giving pushes.”
With his win on Sunday at Atlanta, this marks his second career Cup series win and his first win on an oval.
Rounding out the top five were Ryan Blaney in second, Kyle Busch in third, Austin Cindric in fourth and Bubba Wallace in fifth.
“It’s good to see Daniel get a win,” Busch told Fox Sports post-race. “We were helping each being Chevy team partners and working together there. Shows that when you do have friends and you can make alliances that they do seem to work and that was a good part of today.”
Rounding out the top ten were Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in sixth, Ross Chastain in seventh, Michael McDowell in eighth, Chris Buescher in ninth and Ty Gibbs in tenth.
Sunday’s race at Atlanta seen a 16-car crash, 10 cautions for 65 laps and a red flag that lasted a little over 11 minutes.
The 3-wide battle to the checkered flag came after a red flag with 19 laps to go in the race after a multi-car crash. The pack of cars would go four-wide and contact from Denny Hamlin collected Chase Briscoe and sent both drivers spinning causing damage to both cars.
Josh Berry and Harrison Burton were also collected in the wreck and sustained minor damage.
This would set the field up for the final restart that would go green with five laps remaining in the race.
The hard racing between Busch, Blaney and Suarez could have caused another wreck before the leaders took that white flag. That did not happen despite the field going three-wide several times. All top five finishers left the race with no damage to their cars from the final restart,
“What a cool finish,” Blaney told Fox Sports post-race. “Appreciate the fans for sticking around. That’s a lot of fun. That’s always a good time when we can do that. Race clean, three-wide finish to the end. Happy for Daniel. That was cool to see. Fun racing with Kyle. I can’t complain, I’ve won them by very very little too, so I can’t complain too much when I loose them by that much.”
Notables Noah Gragson and Christopher Bell were credited with a DNF after getting collected in a crash in the opening laps of the race. Alex Bowman, who finished runner-up to Hendricks Motorsports teammate William Byron last Sunday in the Daytona 500 finished 27th on Sunday in Atlanta after struggling due to damage from a crash that sent him five laps down for most of the race.
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, March 3rd at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on FOX.
Stage 1 Winner: Michael McDowell
Stage 2 Winner: Austin Cindric
Race Winner: Daniel Suarez
About Me: Hi, my name is Matthew I'm 17 from Charlotte, NC. Racing has been something that has interested me my whole life. As a kid my dad would always take me to each of the Charlotte races and the adrenaline you get watching NASCAR's best drivers go around is one like no other. My goal as a writer is to give you the best information possible.
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