Daniel Suarez and Chase Elliott battled for position at the Grant Park 165 on the Chicago Street Course on Sunday. By the final lap, Elliott had made it into the top 15 and was battling Suarez for 13th place. However, Suarez rammed Elliott, sending the No. 9 car hurtling into a corner.
After the race, Daniel Suarez told his side of the story to provide more clarity about what happened between him and Elliott in the closing seconds of the Chicago Street Race. The #99 Chevrolet driver said Elliott first pushed him and then intentionally pushed the HMS driver back. Regarding the incident with Elliott late in the race, Suarez told a frontstretch reporter:
“We met in the last few corners. He pushed me a little bit, but I pushed him as hard as I could and hit him pretty hard in the last corner. My mistake.”
On lap 57 of the shortened Chicago race, the No. 9 HMS driver passed Suarez in turn 11 to move into 13th place. The contact caused the No. 99 car to crash into Brad Keselowski’s No. 6 Ford, which crashed into the tire barrier. Daniel Suarez then got his revenge by intentionally running into the rear of Elliott’s No. 9 car in the next corner. Chase Elliott finished the race 21st and Suarez 11th. After the race, the two exchanged words on pit road and whatever disagreements between them seemed to have been resolved.
Daniel Suarez described his outing at Chicago Street Course
The 32-year-old Mexican driver had a chaotic race in Chicago, where he initially had a strong car after starting from ninth on the grid, but unfortunately was involved in a collision with future race winner Alex Bowman and Bubba Wallace. causing some damage to his number 99 car.
Despite this, Daniel Suarez managed to gain a position on the track and achieve a respected P11. Regarding his day at the Chicago Street Race, Suarez told Frontstretch:“I thought we had a great car at the start of the race, but then we had an accident with a #48 and a #23, and our car was a little damaged, and I managed to gain some positions on the track to Take. But you know, it was difficult, given the time of the race, to be able to recover 100%, but the team did a good job and we managed to recover up to 11th place.”
Daniel Suarez is currently 18th in the Cup Series points standings with 410 points. He is already in the running for the 16-driver playoffs, thanks to the victory in Atlanta in February.
