Unhappy Daniel Suarez Fires Back at iRacing After Organization Takes Cheap Shot Following His Awful Weekend at Martinsville
Daniel Suarez had an awful weekend at the NASCAR Cup Series race in Martinsville. After one frustrating incident with William Byron earlier in the race, Suarez was caught up in a big crash that ended his day along with multiple other drivers. After the race, he was ready to move on to next week’s race at Richmond. Then iRacing.com took a cheap shot at Suarez on Twitter. He has responded.
Daniel Suarez off to solid start with Trackhouse Racing in 2021
In his fifth NASCAR Cup Series season with his fourth different team, Daniel Suarez entered the 2021 season excited and hopeful driving for the new Trackhouse Racing Team, owned by Justin Marks and Grammy Award-winning rapper Pitbull.
After a disappointing start to the year with a 36th-place finish at Daytona, Suarez rebounded and finished in the top 20 in four of the next six races, including a 15th place at Homestead.
Without question, Suarez’s highlight this season came a few weeks ago at Bristol on the dirt where he surprised everyone, including himself, finishing in fourth, his best finish since 2019. Not surprisingly, that top 5-finish injected some confidence and excitement into the Trackhouse organization.
Daniel Suarez struggles at Martinsville
Unfortunately for Daniel Suarez, the race at Martinsville brought him back down to earth. It started going downhill before the race even started when his crew chief was ejected due to an inspection violation. Suarez was also sent to the back of the field.
During the race, it didn’t get any better and Suarez let his crew know about it.
“I can tell you right now we suck,” the 29-year-old said over his radio during the race. “Maybe we’re good on the long runs, but who cares because we’re going to be a lap down by then.”
Suarez’s situation went from bad to worse later in the race when William Byron slammed into the back of his car. Over the radio, Byron apologized. Suarez was having none of it.
“Tell that fu**ing 24 that I’m going to get him back,” Suarez said over his radio. His spotter Steve Barkdoll agreed. “10-4. We owe him one big.”
iRacing takes cheap shot and driver fires back
Daniel Suarez’s day ended with 114 laps to go when his car was involved in a massive crash that resulted in his car catching on fire. While he waited for the safety crews to get to his position and extinguish the fire, he also kept an eye out for Byron making his way around the track. When the No. 24 car approached, Suarez walked up the track and flung his ice bags at the car.
During the post-race interview, Suarez admitted it just wasn’t his day.
“Overall, we have to keep working. This weekend wasn’t great. We came from the back several times. We had a fast car. We made bad adjustments. Bad call from the spotter a few times. It just wasn’t a clean weekend.”
That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. On Monday, the Fox NASCAR account tweeted how “Martinsville went up in smoke for Daniel Suarez,” with a video of his car on fire. The iRacing.com account added a little fuel to the fire with its reply.
“Shoulda thrown the water at the fire, Daniel,” the tweet read.
“Stick to video games. This is real racing,” Suarez curtly responded.
It was clearly not a good look for the online racing organization and fans responded saying as much. For Suarez, he can just chalk up Martinsville and the iRacing comments as all one bad weekend and hope to get back on track this coming weekend at Richmond.
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