NASCAR Insights: Trackhouse duo overcomes lack of speed for Texas top 10s
Ross Chastain and Daniel Suárez both overcame a lack of speed in their Trackhouse Racing Chevrolets to leave Texas Motor Speedway with top-10 finishes.
According to NASCAR Insights, Chastain's No. 1 Chevrolet ranked just 23rd in overall speed in Sunday's Würth 400 presented by Liqui Moly, and Suárez's No. 99 28th. But Chastain stormed to a second-place finish despite the relative lack of pace, while Suárez came home 10th.
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MORE: Texas results | NASCAR Insights analysis explained
Chastain's surge was bolstered by his No. 2 ranking in restarts Sunday and bettered with defense, which ranked third overall. That continues a trend of overcoming hindered performance from his No. 1 Chevrolet, which ranks 14th this season in speed. But Chastain isn't alone. His Trackhouse teammates Suárez and Shane van Gisbergen are facing similar issues, ranking 22nd and 35th in outright speed.
'That's a working-class day,' Chastain told FOX Sports. 'Just no confidence in the car (Saturday), and you all saw that. Just the speed of the Trackhouse cars on Saturdays is just terrible. And we're just not confident — all three drivers.
'There was one pit stop today that (crew chief) Phil Surgen and the group — it takes a ton of people back at Trackhouse and on the box here and at GM Chevrolet, and they made me a confident driver all of a sudden with one adjustment. And it was small stuff. It doesn't even make sense. But after that, I was a confident driver. … But yeah, I can't drive an uncomfortable car, personally. So as soon as they got it comfortable — or at least gave me some confidence — we started going forward.'
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At Texas, no one defended positions better than Suárez, a two-time Cup race winner. He maximized the productivity of his pit crew as well, which ranked fourth Sunday with front tire changer Josh Bush, rear changer Seth Gajdorus, tire carrier Charles Plank, jackman Josh Appleby and fueler Milan Rudanovic. However, the No. 99 car ranked 28th in passing and 20th on restarts.
'It was a good day for this No. 99 Kubota Chevrolet team,' Suárez said. 'We had decent speed out there. I think that we potentially had a little bit more, but we were struggling a lot on restarts all day long, except for the start of the race for some reason. All in all, it was a decent day, and it's good to get back-to-back top-10 finishes.'
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