How many times do you have to lose before you make history?
Daniel Suárez has lost far more races than he has won, but it was precisely those defeats that helped him reach the top of NASCAR.
This is the story of how a kid who didn’t speak English, who lived with friends because he didn’t have a Social Security number to rent an apartment, and who drove a “vochito” from Monterrey across the border into the United States, made his way in the most closed-off sport in the American South, and why he says being Mexican is his “biggest ace.”
Daniel Suárez was 11 years old the first time he got into a go-kart. He remembers feeling, with the absolute certainty of a child, that God had given him a special talent for driving race cars. He was faster than
everyone else. And for years, that was enough.
But talent, he says today, only takes you so far.
When he reached the upper levels of NASCAR, he realized something that changed everything: at the highest level, there are only 36 drivers. Thirty-six. And every single one of them once felt the way he did at 11: chosen, gifted with a special talent. The difference, then, wasn’t talent. It was everything else.
“I had to take many, many losses to be able to get here. There’s no way you can succeed at something without going through a lot of setbacks. The important thing is to always keep getting back up.”
Suárez finished a strong seventh in the Freeway Insurance 500, the NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway, on Sunday, Oct. 18.
Getting here, the barriers for Suárez were literal. There was a time when he was living in the United States without speaking English, without money, without a Social Security number. “And without a Social Security number, no one will rent you an apartment,” he said. So he lived with friends, moving from house to house, while trying to learn a language that closed doors before he had a chance to open them.
“Like many immigrants, I had nothing. I didn’t speak English. I didn’t have money,” he said.
And in the middle of all that, there was a race. A small race, in a small place, in 2013. It doesn’t appear among his most important records. It doesn’t carry the prestige of a championship. But for Daniel Suárez, that race meant everything.
“It was a turning point after all the work I had put in trying to learn English, being there, working and winning for the first time in the United States. It was the beginning of the whole wave of everything that came afterward,” he said in an interview with The Arizona Republic.
The day he stopped being ‘the different one’
What followed was historic: more victories, championships, and confirmation that a Mexican driver could win on the most hostile turf. He became the first driver born outside the United States to win a Cup Series race. The first to win a championship. The first to win a race outside the United States.
But there’s something striking about the way Suárez tells the story of that journey. For a long time, he believed that being different, being Mexican, speaking Spanish, coming from another country, was his biggest disadvantage. Until one day, after reaching the upper levels of the sport, he understood it all.
“I started to realize that being different, being Mexican, is the biggest advantage I have. It’s the biggest ace I have,” he said.
He explains it with a scene that sounds almost like something out of a comedy: “We just finished Hispanic Heritage Month, and in NASCAR, I’m the only Mexican. The only one who can speak Spanish. Imagine how many opportunities that creates. Everyone wants a little piece of me,” he says with a smile.
The rock he had been chipping away at for years finally cracked open. And behind it was a world of opportunities that only he, from his unique position, could seize.
Sometimes he doubts himself. He wonders whether he’s doing the right thing, whether he’s good enough. “Even how good I am,” he admits. But doubt doesn’t paralyze him; it pushes him.
“I know that no one has handed me what I have today. I’ve had to work for everything I have. No one has given me anything, and what I have, I deserve. I’ve earned it.”
Discipline beats talent
If you ask Suárez what matters most when it comes to reaching a goal, talent, discipline, preparation, confidence or where you come from, he doesn’t hesitate. Talent is only the starting point.
“All 36 of us have talent. The difference is how disciplined you are, how hard you’re willing to work, and how good a teammate you are.”
Because in NASCAR, he says, no one wins alone.
“I can do my job 100%, but without my engineers, without my mechanics, without the tire changers, it doesn’t work. It’s very important to be a good teammate and to understand that there will be good days and bad days. On the bad days, you have to learn,” he says.
And then there’s that hunger that never goes away.
“It’s very easy to say, ‘I’ve made it here, I’m making good money.’ But you have to have that fire inside you, that hunger to always want more,” he says.
The hour before the roar
Daniel Suárez has a ritual before every race, one that reveals more about him than any victory. A few hours before getting into the car, he steps away from the fans and sponsors and shuts himself away for a few minutes.
He closes his eyes.
First, he visualizes the sacrifices: his family, the difficult moments, everything he had to leave behind to get there. Then he visualizes the victories, the big moments. And after that, the immediate future: the pit stops, the strategy, the lines he plans to run. When he opens his eyes, he walks toward his next challenge and goes after the win.
“And I remind myself how fortunate I am to do what I do. Because when I was a kid, I wanted to be a professional driver, but not for the money or the fame. Simply because I loved racing. And when you reach the professional level, you have so many responsibilities that you get tired, and many times you forget the most important thing: the love of competing.”
“Imagine how beautiful that is. It’s very easy to forget. So I try to remind myself that the dream I have today is the same dream I had 20 years ago, when I was 10 or 11. You have to enjoy it a little more,” he says.
The future, being better, being a dad
Today, Daniel Suárez is married to Julia Piquet, daughter of three-time Formula 1 world champion Nelson Piquet, and last September, he became a father. More than a biographical detail, that milestone has become a point around which everything else falls into place. Fatherhood, accumulated experience and years of chipping away at the same stone have turned him into a different version of himself: smarter, more complete as a driver.
“I think next year I’ll be a better driver than I was this year,” he says.
It’s not something he says lightly. 2026, he says, has been a great year, but there is also a conviction he won’t compromise on: “I’m someone who always wants more. Now I want more, and I keep working,” he says.
When asked which driver he would like to team up with, he doesn’t dodge the question. “Max Verstappen is a great driver. I’d like him to be my next teammate.” He says it plainly, with the ease of someone who knows the next step is always a little higher, on the next mountain.
But when he is asked about his biggest dream, the answer shifts. He is no longer talking about trophies, teams or championships. He talks about something much more personal.
“To keep giving the best version of myself. To be a good dad. That’s the most important thing to me. That’s my dream now.”
That’s the turn. The driver who climbed into a go-kart at 11 believing God had given him a special talent, the one who crossed a border without speaking English, now puts something that cannot be won on a racetrack first: being a good father.
But there is something else he wants to leave behind. Suárez doesn’t want to be just the first. He wants to be the one who opened the door for those who come next: a more diverse sport, a path laid out for future generations. That is the day he will feel his mission is complete.
“The day I can not only look at all the trophies, but also see the change in NASCAR’s culture and make diversity greater, I will feel it,” he says.
It is not an abstract goal. Today, he remains the only Mexican in NASCAR’s highest series, and that, he says, is precisely what needs to change.
“NASCAR has to continue its multicultural efforts to keep bringing in more talent: not just drivers, but mechanics, engineers. I’ve had many conversations with NASCAR about it, and there are definitely things we have to keep pushing.”
And he keeps chipping away at the stone, because he knows that behind each one lies a world of opportunities waiting.
“To those coming up behind me, I say: keep pushing for whatever it is you want to do. Just because no one has done it before doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. It means it might be harder. But once you get there, there will be a world of opportunities. Because being different, being Mexican, being Latino, speaking Spanish, speaking multiple languages, has to be the biggest ace you have.”
And in his case, that ace turned out to be the best one of all.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Daniel Suárez made NASCAR history, but his biggest dream is no longer about racing
