I mean, Ross has a mean right hook…
The feud between NASCAR Cup Series drivers – and former teammates – Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez doesn’t seem to be going away after comments made by Suarez days after the two almost came to blows on pit road following the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Suarez is in his first season driving for Spire Motorsports after spending the past five seasons with Trackhouse Racing, where he was a teammate to the driver of the #1 car, Ross Chastain.
But it’s clear there’s no love lost between the former teammates after their confrontation following Sunday’s race.
Both Chastain and Suarez struggled during the race, with Chastain finishing 17th and Suarez one spot behind him in 18th. Ross managed to get around Suarez to pick up a spot with just 2 laps left in the race, but once the checkered flag waved it appears that something had the driver of the #1 car upset with his former teammate.
Cameras captured Chastain bumping Suarez as they headed to pit road. And once both drivers got out of their cars, Suarez walked over to Chastain as the two had a heated conversation.
At one point Chastain pushed Suarez before the two were quickly separated, and I’m not a lip reader but it appears that Chastain asked Suarez several times if he wanted to fight.
Eventually Chastain walked away, and he declined to comment on what started the altercation, but apparently Ross was upset with his former teammate for running him up the track and nearly putting him into the wall as he tried to get around Suarez.
And it’s not the first run-in that Suarez has had with his former teammate this season: Starting with the Clash at Bowman Gray, fans have pointed out that it’s seemed like Suarez has been especially aggressive in racing the Trackhouse cars following several run-ins with all three drivers.
It’s clear that Suarez isn’t exactly a fan of his former team: Since leaving Trackhouse, his comments have alluded to the fact that he felt like he wasn’t a priority for the team that also fielded cars for Chastain and Shane Van Gisbergen last season. And last week, when Suarez qualified in 4th place at Phoenix Raceway, his wife Julia Piquet took a not-so-subtle shot at Daniel’s former team:
Following the confrontation over the weekend, Suarez even admitted that his relationship with Chastain has always been “very weird,” calling his former teammate “two-faced.”
And he opened up more on his feelings about his former team (and teammate) in a vlog posted yesterday, calling Chastain his “old enemigo” (which means rival in Spanish) but denying that he’s been specifically targeting Trackhouse cars:
“I’m not even thinking about that.”
Suarez says that while racing Chastain on Sunday, he got loose and unintentionally ran him up the track, but that Chastain was clearly upset about it:
“Obviously he was mad. Understandable, a little mad, that’s fine. He gave me the finger for a lap or half a lap, which I think is a little bit unnecessary but that’s him.”
He says that he then went over to Ross to try to apologize on pit road, but was upset by Chastain’s reaction:
“I have known Ross for a long time and and I have always known that him and I were very different, you know, we’re very different kind of people. …
I always respect him, but the kind of words that he said after the race is just completely unacceptable. Like that’s chicken stuff. That’s not good. I lost a lot of respect for him as a person, because that’s just not good. It’s not a good look for for him and not a good look for kind of person that he is, I think. And it was just a little bit sad to be honest. … I was getting fired up to fight but what I was going to gain? I mean there is nothing to gain with that.”
And today, Suarez joined NASCAR Radio on SiriusXM where he continued stoking the fire – and insisted that he would have been able to take Ross in a fight:
“If I want to fight Ross, and he knows this, he’s not going to last five seconds. So what am I going to gain with that?”
Suarez says that the reason he didn’t fight Ross on pit road was because he didn’t want to get fined and bring negative attention to his team:
“The sponsors never like that. The sponsors like exposure, but they don’t like bad media and bad PR.”
Now, I feel like Suarez might be underestimating Ross in a fight. He’s a blue-collar watermelon farmer who’s proven before that he’s not afraid to scrap:
But Suarez has also shown off his strength before in a fight with his now-teammate Michael McDowell:
Would have been a fun one…and I think it would have gone a lot longer than 5 seconds.
