Daniel Suarez seemed poised for a solid finish at Phoenix Raceway, but his luck took a turn for the worse. During the NASCAR Cup Series race, Suarez was running in sixth place when an incident involving Katherine Legge and Josh Berry changed the course of his day. As Legge spun underneath Berry, Suarez chose to go high to avoid the wreck—but it turned out to be the wrong move. He got caught up in the crash, damaging his No. 99 car and setting back his race efforts. Despite the setback, Suarez managed to work his way up to 23rd place, though it was far from the result he had hoped for.
After the race, Suarez took to his YouTube channel to share his thoughts on the incident. While he didn’t personally blame Legge for the wreck, he was critical of NASCAR’s decision to allow her to compete. Suarez argued that drivers without sufficient experience shouldn’t be racing in the Cup Series, especially on fast tracks like Phoenix and Las Vegas. He expressed concerns about the safety risks involved when inexperienced drivers share the track with seasoned competitors.
“There’s nothing wrong with her. What is wrong is NASCAR,” Suarez stated. “They cannot allow somebody with no experience to run in the Cup Series. Plain and simple. You go to Las Vegas, to a fast track, it’s freaking dangerous. You cannot do that. And then here, honestly, this is not a slow pace. Like, I hit her, and I was running 100 MPH, slowing down already.”
Suarez’s frustration stems from Legge’s limited background in stock car racing. While she had prior NASCAR experience, she had never driven the NextGen car until the Phoenix weekend. Additionally, her only previous oval start in NASCAR’s top three series came at Richmond in 2018—an absence of nearly six years from the sport’s most competitive circuits. For Suarez, that gap in experience was too significant to overlook, especially when split-second decisions can impact the outcome of a race or the safety of drivers.
His comments raise broader questions about NASCAR’s approval process for drivers entering the Cup Series. As the competition continues to intensify, ensuring that all drivers meet a certain standard of experience and skill becomes crucial. Whether Suarez’s remarks will prompt NASCAR to review or adjust its policies remains to be seen, but his concerns highlight the fine balance between opportunity and safety in the sport.
