Suarez currently drives the #99 Chevrolet Camaro alongside Ross Chastain (#1) and Shane van Gisbergen (#88).
Suarez and Chastain have been staples of the Trackhouse set-up since it bought the Chip Ganassi Racing program and made its Cup Series debut in 2022.
Van Gisbergen made his first start with Trackhouse in 2023 as a Project91 wildcard and joined the team full-time in 2024, competing under the Kaulig Racing banner in the Xfinity Series before stepping up to the Cup Series in 2025.
Chastain’s future is all but certain but little has been said about Suarez or van Gisbergen who have the looming threat of young gun Connor Zilisch waiting in the wings.
Zilisch is widely regarded as one of the sport’s future stars and is on Trackhouse Racing’s books. A versatile talent, he won on his Xfinity Series debut at Watkins Glen last year.
Van Gisbergen has had a tough introduction to full-time Cup Series competition, but has made steady progress this year.
Suarez, who has seven full seasons of Cup Series competition, just edges out van Gisbergen in the average finish stakes. The Kiwi averages 26.8, whereas the Mexican averages 24.4 at the chequered flag.
Those results are hardly flashy for someone as experienced as Suarez, who heads to his first home race this weekend knowing he needs to perform to have a chance of keeping his seat.
“It’s not the first time that I’ve been in this position,” said Suarez, whose future was also questioned late last year until a strong finish to the season earned him a Playoffs berth.
“Definitely the first time with the Mexico race, but it’s not the first time that I’ve been in the position that we have to win or in the position that we have a contract negotiation in the middle of the season.
“It’s definitely a distraction. I won’t sit here and tell you that it doesn’t really matter. I’m trying to be as smart as possible and to put all this stuff on the side and just do my thing on the track.
“So we’re having all these conversations,” he added.
“I wish I didn’t have to have these conversations, and I didn’t have these distractions, but it’s part of life, right? Sometimes you have to do several things at the same time.
“But I’m trying not to think about it too much and trying to work in my job and push as hard as possible for competition and trying to help the team slowly get better and better.”
What van Gisbergen has over Suarez is road course racing nous.
The three-time Supercars champion hasn’t won in the Cup Series since his breakout result on the streets of Chicago, but has been a contender in every road course or street race since.
The ‘win and you’re in’ format bodes well for van Gisbergen, who has four opportunities to win his way into the Playoffs, which come with a sizable financial incentive.
The upcoming race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is one of those opportunities.
For Suarez, the occasion is one he’s been waiting for his entire career. Even with questions over his future, the Mexican said he’s focused on enjoying the event.
“The Mexico race is something that I’ve been hoping and waiting on for many, many years, and I’m not going to let anything else from outside take that week and that moment from myself,” Suarez said.
“We have to just continue to put one foot in front of the other and continue to move forward. I think that in Trackhouse, we have found some decent speed in the last few weeks, so that’s promising, and hopefully we can continue to move in that direction.
“Once we get into the race, we don’t want to deal with any of this stuff, and I just want to focus and have fun driving race cars,” he said.
“There is going to be more on my plate just by nature, just being the local guy, the very first race ever in Mexico City in the Cup Series. I have to accept that.
“With that being said, I have to protect my space for the competition stuff because if we don’t do the competition stuff right, everything else doesn’t really matter. So we have to put a balance on everything.”
Monday’s race gets underway at 5am AEST and will take in 100 laps.
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