Daniel Suárez reacts to car bursting into flames after Denny Hamlin ignites spilled fuel
Daniel Suárez’s run in Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway is over after his No. 99 Chevrolet became engulfed in flames after a pit stop following the end of Stage 1.
Suárez was forced to hop out of the car as his pit crew took care of the fire. The result was a cooked car too unsafe to jump back into. Suárez spoke with NBC Sports of the incident, giving his perspective from inside the car at the time it caught on fire.
“I don’t run a rear-view mirror anymore,” Suárez said. “Just run my rear-view camera, and the camera is on the bumper. I can feel the heat on my back, but I cannot see it. So, I was trying to go fast trying to calm down the fire. But by the time I got here, I could feel a lot of heat and I could see the fire here. Very unfortunate. I don’t know what we could have done better. Every single time that we pit, we drop a little bit of fuel.”
Daniel Suárez’s momentum comes to a halt at Daytona
The fire first occurred as Suárez was receiving fuel on pit road. As Kyle Petty explained on the NBC broadcast, Denny Hamlin, in the pit box behind Suárez, had some fire come off his pipes which ignited some fuel on the ground. The fire chased forward and went into the trunk of Suárez.
It’s an unfortunate set of circumstances for Suárez, as he entered Saturday’s race riding a three-race top-10 streak. It’s the kind of momentum he needed heading into the playoffs. He will, however, have to find it again next Sunday at Darlington.