Daniel Suárez Lashes Out at Bubba Wallace and Shane van Gisbergen During Cook Out Clash
What’s Happening? Following heated mid-pack battles before the halfway mark of the 2026 Cook Out Clash, Spire Motorsports’ Daniel Suárez had…
Since Daniel Suarez’s exit from Trackhouse Racing at the end of the 2025 season, it has not taken long for tensions beneath the surface to bubble up between the Spire Motorsports driver and his former teammates, something that seems to be a storyline that could last through the 2026 season.
After leaving his long-time home last season, Suarez did not hide his feelings about the split, even as he appreciated the team for the years spent building something together.
He spoke of Trackhouse as a place that gave him wins and chances, yet he also said the ground had shifted beneath his feet.
“Things change. Companies change. People change. It’s part of life,” Suarez said at the time.
Over the past two seasons, uncertainty hovered around his seat, though the team did not pull the plug on the relationship until last season. As the team expanded and its lineup changed, Suarez, like many in the media room and grandstands, sensed the shift.
The rise of Shane van Gisbergen, the arrival of Connor Zilisch, and the continued results delivered by Ross Chastain altered the pecking order inside the garage. For Suarez, the room that once felt wide open began to feel like the walls were closing in.
Those feelings have not stayed behind closed doors, but now, they have taken to the track. Suarez has raced the Trackhouse drivers with little room to spare, and this past weekend’s argument with Chastain at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday served as the latest proof of hard feelings between the former driver and team.
Both drivers ran near the tail end of the top 20 when the duo was battling for 17th place in the closing laps. Chastain slipped alongside Suarez and edged past on the outside.
Ultimately, Chastain finished the race in 17th while Suarez followed in 18th. The simmer then boiled over on the cool-down lap, when Suarez pulled alongside the No. 1 car, and the two traded paint along the backstretch before heading toward pit road.
Once the cars stopped, the drivers climbed out and squared up beside Chastain’s machine.
First, it was just words, and then came a little bit of shove, as officials stepped in before the exchange could go any further.
Speaking after the race, Suarez did not sugarcoat his thoughts on Chastain. “For some reason, our relationship has always been very weird. Almost like a little bit of two-faced of his part for some reason. And today I saw actually what I thought he had in his mind for a while.”
However, the friction between the two drivers did not start in Las Vegas; it goes back a long way.
Like, during the race at Sonoma Raceway in July 2025, Chastain entered the final corner on Lap 45 and clipped Suarez, sending the No. 99 car into the hairpin and dropping Suarez from 14th to 29th.
Suarez let his frustration pour out over the radio that day. But later, Chastain sent word through his spotter that he had misjudged the entry and could not slow the car in time.
Another skirmish between the two came during the 2023 race at Circuit of the Americas. On a late restart, Chastain made contact with Alex Bowman. Ultimately, the contact pushed Bowman into Suarez and derailed a run that had pointed toward the top five. As a result of that contact, Suarez limped home in 27th.
After that race, Suarez asked his crew where the Bowman and Chastain cars were and sped past several machines on the cool-down lap while searching for them on pit road.
However, last year, there was a time when the two drivers spoke in praise of one another.
Chastain said Suarez shared his outlook off the track more than any teammate he had worked with. Suarez, for his part, had spoken of Chastain’s skill behind the wheel. But those words now ring hollow after their run-in at Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, Chastain is not the only Trackhouse Racing driver who has felt Suarez’s elbows this season.
Earlier during the season, at Bowman Gray Stadium, Suarez somewhat kept his cool after contact with Bubba Wallace in the pack. With SVG, however, there was no such restraint, and the Mexican driver raced his former teammate as if history weighed nothing.
What’s Happening? Following heated mid-pack battles before the halfway mark of the 2026 Cook Out Clash, Spire Motorsports’ Daniel Suárez had…
The frost has also reached beyond the track. During media sessions, Suarez made some pointed remarks when speaking about racing former teammates. His message was clear that on the track, he gives what he gets.
Even his wife, Julia Piquet, has joined the conversation. After Suarez qualified fourth for the race at Phoenix Raceway, she posted on X: “Amazing the things one can do when you’re no longer just an afterthought,” which seemed like an indirect jab at the Trackhouse Racing team.
The chatter picked up again after the Las Vegas clash, when a video of Suarez and Chastain on pit road went viral. Dirty Mo Media poked fun at the earlier Phoenix comment by asking, “But what will Julia say?”
Piquet did not hold back. “Tag me when you mention me, you whimp,” she replied. Dirty Mo Media fired back with a spelling correction: “*wimp @JuliaPiquet.” Piquet answered once more, writing, “Sorry. Keeping the spelling perfect across five languages gets tricky sometimes,”
As entertaining as it was to the fans, many also read it as a sign that neither Suarez nor his inner circle has forgotten how the split with Trackhouse Racing played out.
Suarez has moved on from teams before, including his stints with Joe Gibbs Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing, and Gaunt Brothers Racing. But during those exits, such public barbs never surfaced.
Five races into his run with Spire, Suarez sits 17th in the standings with an average finish of 18.2 and one run inside the top five. The season still has a long road ahead, but the tension with his former team shows no sign of fading anytime soon.
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