Shane van Gisbergen shows Trackhouse made the right call with Daniel Suárez

New York Times

07-07-2025

CHICAGO — Daniel Suárez is great for NASCAR. He is fan-friendly, well-liked by sponsors, an intense competitor, a proven Cup Series talent, and a bridge to a coveted demographic.
And yet his racing future is in doubt for 2026 after being dropped by his Trackhouse Racing team last week.
Tough business, this racing deal. But in a series that emphasizes the power of wins over all else, Trackhouse owner Justin Marks didn't just make the right call; he made the only call.
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There's no further evidence needed than what has unfolded over the last few weeks since Suárez won a stirring Mexico City Xfinity Series race and rejoiced in front of his elated home fans.
The very next day, Suárez's Trackhouse teammate Shane van Gisbergen did exactly what he was hired to do and expected to do — score a Cup Series victory in his rookie season and put Trackhouse's new No. 88 car straight into the playoffs.
Then at Chicago this weekend, van Gisbergen did it again. He swept both poles and both races — only the second driver in NASCAR history to do so — and became only the fourth driver to win multiple Cup races this season. If he gets another victory at Sonoma on Sunday — where he'll be the heavy favorite — van Gisbergen will tie for the series lead in wins for this year.
There's simply no one in the 36-year-old New Zealander's class on road courses at the moment. Though the Cup Series drivers have all raised their game since 'SVG' stunned the field with a victory in his NASCAR debut during the inaugural Chicago street race, he still seems to be a step ahead, with some reserve still left in the tank.
'These (road) races are like a holiday to me; it's the ovals where I'm really focused on getting better and better,' van Gisbergen said Sunday. 'I come here and there's no stress.'
That's pretty terrifying for the Cup Series field, because while van Gisbergen poses no championship threat unless he makes major progress on oval racing, it's now obvious he's going to be the driver to beat six times per season at road courses. And since there's a road course in Round 2 of the Cup playoffs, it makes it conceivable to think van Gisbergen could take one of the playoff spots for the elite eight.
Maybe it's premature to declare van Gisbergen as the greatest stock car road racer ever, but he has now won seven of his 16 career starts on those tracks between the Cup and Xfinity Series. If anyone wants to get hung up on the best label when van Gisbergen doesn't have the overall victory totals yet, that's fine; but it's hard to argue he isn't the most talented ever.
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'When he's done with us all and walks away from the sport, I think he's going to walk away as the best road course racer that this sport has ever seen,' Marks said.
After Sunday, despite van Gisbergen's lack of oval experience, he is now ahead of Suárez in the point standings. He also has more career wins than Suárez. So if the choice was between Suárez and van Gisbergen for the third and final spot on Trackhouse's Cup Series team in 2026, it's a difficult argument for Suárez.
Meanwhile, the alternative path to keep Suárez at Trackhouse also seemed like it was quickly disappearing even before the Mexico City race. The 18-year-old wunderkind and Trackhouse development driver Connor Zilisch has already won three of his 21 career Xfinity Series races and is proving to be a threat at every type of racetrack.
Remarkably, the rookie now has six straight top-five finishes — including a win and three runner-ups, one of which came at the hands of an aggressive van Gisbergen on Saturday.
Zilisch already has backing from Red Bull and possesses a next-level maturity fostered through his days racing against today's upcoming F1 talent as a youth. The Charlotte native's parents sent him to Italy to race karts against drivers like F1 rookie Kimi Antonelli — the driver who replaced Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes and who lost to Zilisch in one of Europe's biggest karting races when they were pre-teens.
There's no point in keeping Zilisch down in Xfinity for another year, not when he's already proven to be a Sunday-level NASCAR talent. And that has seemed obvious for months.
Meanwhile, the team's other driver — Ross Chastain — is one of the best in the Cup Series and is in no danger of losing his job. He will be a fixture at Trackhouse for years to come.
So there was Suárez on Saturday, facing the media and acknowledging that while the news became official only last Monday, he had understood his future for some time now. Trackhouse and Suárez both called the breakup after a five-year relationship 'mutual,' but it certainly didn't seem Suárez had much of a choice.
'As we grow and as the team grows, obviously we have to identify different opportunities,' Marks said Sunday. 'We just felt like it was time to wrap up that relationship.'
For his part, Suárez said there were certain things he was unhappy with at Trackhouse. He inferred the progress was too slow when it came to making necessary changes to find speed for his team, said his cars were way too inconsistent, and suggested Trackhouse had spread itself too thin while pursuing a global brand (Marks now also owns a MotoGP team, for example).
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'It's like being in a relationship, but just living together because you guys bought a house together,' Suárez said. 'It just didn't feel good anymore. I'm pretty sure it was in both ways, but it was just a matter of time.
'You need to have everything clicking in the right direction. And unfortunately, I have felt a few things are missing for the last several months.'
So what are the options for Suárez? Most of the 2026 Cup rides have been accounted for, but Suárez brings some of his loyal sponsors and their dollars with him. And though dropping down to the Xfinity Series and winning another championship there to go along with his 2016 title could be an option, he's not currently interested in doing so.
'I love (Xfinity), but I like to compete with the best of the best (in Cup), and that's why I wake up and I work hard every single morning,' he said.
That's admirable, and Suárez belongs in the Cup Series. But the difficult part of competing with the best of the best is someone has to lose. And when it came the race to keep his job at Trackhouse, Suárez simply got outrun.
(Top photo of Shane van Gisbergen celebrating Sunday's win: James Gilbert / Getty Images)