Denny Hamlin believes Trackhouse Racing team owner Justin Marks‘ decision regarding the future of Daniel Suárez got a whole lot more difficult after the driver’s win in Atlanta.
Many believe Suárez is the eventual odd-man out at Trackhouse, with wheelmen like Zane Smith and Shane Van Gisbergen waiting in the wings. However, the driver’s victory last weekend may have muddied the waters, as Hamlin explained during the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.
“Justin Marks is going to have an ordeal on his hands, for sure. You know, it just depends, if he wants to go purchase another charter, it becomes easier on him, for sure. He’s got you know, four drivers or so. He’s got two Cup seats. They’ve got some sort of alliance with Spire I guess, but it seems like everyone has an alliance with Spire. So I don’t know how all of this is all working, but certainly Daniel did himself some good favors this week by winning,” Hamlin stated.
While Marks gave Suárez a statement of faith following the win, saying he couldn’t imagine the wheelman of the No. 99 racing for any other team in the future, Hamlin believes the vagueness of what the team owner said tells you there’s more to the story than meets the eye.
“That’s too vague,” Hamlin said, regarding Marks’ statement of faith in Suárez. “I know, and I hear that, and I listened to The Teardown, and when you say statements like, ‘He’ll always be a part of Trackhouse,’ I’m sorry, that’s — you’re not, it’s all he can say, more than likely, but it’s — that doesn’t mean, he didn’t say driving a Cup car at Trackhouse.”
Regardless, Hamlin believes Suárez’s win should buy him at least another season with the team, but that’s only pure speculation on his part.
“It does. It should,” Hamlin added, regarding whether Suárez’s win buys him some more time. “I’m going to just tell you, this thing comes down to dollars and cents sometimes. When you’ve got a couple drivers that are very, very close, or what you deem very close, you’re going to make whatever makes the most financial sense. In some instances, you do whatever makes financial sense to survive, and the talent doesn’t mean as much. So we’ll see how it all plays out. But it’s a really good thing for Trackhouse. Certainly it is for Daniel. Hopefully this gets him some momentum.
“Trust me, if Daniel’s got a fully funded car every single year, sponsors that love him, we’re not even talking about this, I don’t believe. I don’t believe that we have these conversations. But you know, some of these teams that — they’re trying to grow, they’re trying to continue to move up, move up, get better, get better. Trackhouse is one of those, for sure. They’re going to make good business sense, and good competition sense. I think this may muddy the waters. This is just a total speculation on my part. It might muddy the waters more than it helps it, for sure.”
Alas, it remains to be seen what the future holds for Daniel Suárez and Trackhouse Racing, but Denny Hamlin and the rest of the NASCAR world will be watching with a renewed interest in the driver’s future following his win in Atlanta.
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