Transcripts: Daniel Suarez, Pit Road – 9.21.24

Q.Daniel, it looked like a struggle but you advanced.

DANIEL SUÁREZ: It was a struggle. Since yesterday when we unloaded the car for first practice, we just didn’t have the speed. As you know, with a short amount of practice, qualifying, and going to the race, if you don’t have speed out of the trailer, it’s very, very difficult to bring it back to speed. We made it better, but it wasn’t good enough. We were running 30th, 28th, 32nd all night long, and that’s what we had. Luckily we had a great Atlanta, decent Watkins Glen after a broken wheel, and we were able to build a cushion, and we definitely used every single point out of that cushion.

Q.Take me through the emotions of when you were in that race at one point there in 30th, laps down, you guys are right on the cut line. What were you thinking at those times?

DANIEL SUÁREZ: You know, I can only control so much. I can only control what the 99 car can do and everything else is out of my hands. At one point there, I felt bad for the 54 because I had to hold him back quite a bit and he got passed, but I had to do that.

I wasn’t fast enough to run away from him, so I had to play games to be able to affect him as much as possible in a clean way.

Yeah, luckily it worked out good. We have to relax a little bit and focus on the next round.

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