One of NASCAR's nicest drivers appeared to speed past 7 cars to intentionally rear-end a rival on pit road after the race ended
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- NASCAR shared video of Daniel Suárez racing past cars to get to Alex Bowman after COTA race.
- Suárez even pushed his own teammate, Ross Chastain, out of the way.
- The biggest issue might be that it happened on pit road, a big safety no-no.
Alex Bowman found out after NASCAR's race at COTA that Daniel Suárez is capable of anger, despite his reputation in the garage as one of the nicest drivers in the sport.
After the race ended, with Tyler Reddick taking the checkered flag, a video shared by NASCAR shows Suárez speeding past seven cars on the cool-down lap.
At one point, Suárez, who everybody typically greets as "Amigo!" even shoved his own Trackhouse Racing teammate, Ross Chastain, out of the way.
It turns out Suárez really wanted Bowman to know that he was not happy about contact between the pair before the race ended. Once Suárez caught up with Bowman, he rear-ended him three times.
Bowman said after the race that Suarez didn't realize the contact between the pair during the race was caused by a third driver. Bowman described it as a typical misunderstanding on road courses where chain reactions are common.
"Daniel and I, we've been teammates in the past, raced together a long time," Bowman said. "I respect the hell out of him. I'm sure he's still not super happy. Just tried to explain that I wouldn't race him like that, that I was shoved in there. You see that a lot at these road courses.... Sometimes just it's a chain reaction. Fortunately, it worked out for us, ended up with a top five."
It is not clear what penalty Suárez might face. Typically nobody cares when one driver bumps another out of anger, but this type of contact on pit road is a big no-no.
Last year, NASCAR fined Ty Gibbs $75,000 and docked him 25 points for intentionally ramming Ty Dillon on pit road. The contact forced Dillon's car to nearly hit NASCAR officials and pit crew members working on the broken car of Chris Buescher.
—Nick Bromberg (@NickBromberg) September 26, 2022
The contact between Suárez and Bowman was in the less-crowded entrance to pit road, but at least one NASCAR official was standing nearby.