LAS VEGAS — Daniel Suarez tells NBC Sports that if he’s around title contender Christopher Bell in Sunday’s Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, “I won’t make his life easy” after their incident last weekend at the Charlotte Roval.
Bell ran into the back of Suarez as they raced for 11th at the Roval. Bell said he reached out to Suarez this week to apologize, but “I’m sure he’s going to be coming after me, which is not ideal going into the next four races. It’s a mistake, and I’ll have to keep that in the back of my head moving forward.”
Sunday’s race starts the Round of 8. Bell is among the eight remaining playoff drivers. Suarez failed to make the playoffs this season.
Both are not likely to be around each other early in Sunday’s race. Bell won the pole. Suarez starts last after crashing in practice and going to a backup car.
Suarez said before Saturday’s practice that his focus wasn’t on Bell this weekend.
“I didn’t come to Las Vegas thinking that I’m going to go after Christopher Bell,” Suarez told NBC Sports. “That’s not me. I’m going to do my thing, put my effort into the 99. I can tell you for sure, I won’t make his life easy. If I have the opportunity at one point to make his life very difficult, I will, just because I felt like what he did was not acceptable.”
This is the second year in a row in the playoffs that Bell and Suarez have had issues.
In last year’s playoff race at Darlington, Bell got into Suarez and forced him into the wall.
“What happened in Darlington, that was a mistake,” Suarez said of Bell’s actions in that race. “He went too deep, he put me in the wall. That was a mistake, but that was still a racing thing.
“I was mad at him, but I didn’t wreck him. I was going to get him eventually. I eventually got him at COTA, but he didn’t wreck me and I didn’t wreck him. We were just playing a little too hard.
“Actually after that, him and I, we had a conversation and we were even. We were good, and then we were able to move on and that was good. Like I said, there are levels of things. What he did in Darlington to me personally wasn’t as bad as what he did at the Roval.
“In Darlington, he was trying to pass me and we made contact. At the Roval. I don’t think he was trying to pass me. There was not one driver in the field that can see that as ‘Oh, that’s a racing incident.’ Just very dumb move in a very, very bad time.”
