Suarez noted that much of his team’s past struggles have come from going the wrong direction on adjustments during a race, something they’ve worked hard to correct this year.
“A lot of times this year, we’ve been in the situation where we have a good top‑10 car in the beginning of the race, and then we’ve had to make adjustments and fallen off,” Suarez explained. “You can’t stay and not touch the car, because everyone gets better, and if you don’t do a good job making good adjustments in your race car, you’re going to get behind. I felt like in the last couple months … I don’t really know why, but for whatever reason we haven’t done a good job keeping up with the track and making adjustments, and we start good but then we just are not as strong by the end of the race when it really matters.
“This weekend I’m very proud, because the first practice we were okay, the second practice we were better and then we qualified well,” added Suarez. “We were okay at the start of the race, and then we were a little bit bad, but we made some adjustments on a couple of (pit) stops and we got the car better. That for me means a lot, with how well the communication was working today and the good adjustments we made to the race car to keep ourselves up front.”
Overall, Suarez was pleased with Sunday’s effort, but noted that in the end, he didn’t end up in the position that mattered most.
“It was a good day. It definitely helps a lot to have this kind of performance from my race team, because as many people know, we’ve been struggling the last couple months or so,” said Suarez. “I’m very proud of my guys. Like I said on the radio today, second place is good, but I didn’t care if we were second, third or fifth … I really wanted to win.
“We needed that win, but that’s part of racing. We will get it one day.”
Suarez is 20th in the playoff standings, 96 points back of the cutoff line, with five races to go before the end of the regular season. He likely needs a victory to advance into the postseason.
