RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Daniel Suárez packed quite a bit into NASCAR’s Olympic break.
He married his longtime girlfriend in Brazil, then raced there a few days later. After all that, his contract extension with Trackhouse Racing was announced this week — although that had been in the works.
“It’s been done for a little while,” Suárez said. “Been a lot going on in my life, career, personal life. We just wanted to wait for the right moment. I didn’t want the contract or anything else to take over what I think was the most important time in my life. That was with Julia in Brazil.”
Suárez married Julia Piquet on July 30 and then competed in the NASCAR Brasil Series’ Special Edition. Now the focus is back on the Cup Series, which races at Richmond on Sunday night. But first came Friday’s announcement that Suárez and Freeway Insurance will return to the No. 99 Chevrolet with Trackhouse in 2025.
So that clears up who Suárez will drive for next year, but there’s still some long-term uncertainty.
“There is a lot of things in the contract that activate longer if we both decided that that’s the right thing to do. There is a lot of things in Trackhouse that are adjusting and changing,” Suárez said Saturday. “Performance-wise, we are not exactly where we want to be — not just in the 99 but in Trackhouse as a company. We have to make sure that we fix that before we want to go any longer. This goes really both ways.”