Daniel Suárez Focused On ‘Next Race’ During NASCAR Playoff Chase

LOUDON, N.H. -- Being a race car driver takes precision and often split-second decisions, something NASCAR Cup Series driver Daniel Suárez struggles with.

Suárez is seeking his first win of the season when he starts 12-of-36 from the field at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Sunday's Crayon 301.

"We just have to continue to perform to the speed of the race car, we have had pretty good speed," Suárez said prior to qualifying on Saturday. "I will say most of the races, sometimes we lack a little bit of execution but I felt that we're in a good spot right now and hopefully we can continue the trend of good speed and good execution."

Suárez is ranked 15 in the chase for the Cup Series championship, 221 points behind the leader, William Byron, with six Top 10 finishes to go along with two in the Top 5.

"(This is) the first time I've been in this position, so it's fine," Suárez said. It's part of racing. I have to control what I can control. The situation I can't control, I can control one race at a time.

The 2016 Xfinity Series champion, doesn't like to look too far ahead when he is preparing for a race.

"The next one, it's always the next one," Suárez said.

Suárez is coming off a second-place finish in the July 9 race at Atlanta Motor Speedway and looking to build on that momentum.

"I think that the speed isn't the difficult part. We do have that," Suárez said. "I will say that most of the time the consistency part has been mostly execution. And we know that we can fix that. So we've been working hard on that. And I think that we're pulling the trend in the right direction."