On Saturday, the #23 was the only non-playoff team in the top-5 at Bristol. Their determined driver even scored his personal best on the racetrack. For the first time in Thunder Valley, Bubba Wallace ended his night in third behind Chase Elliott & race-winner, Kyle Larson.

The 30-year-old is quietly witnessing his best-ever statistical season in the premier tier, although the winless drought continues. But don’t fool yourself. The mood remains high inside the garages of 23XI Racing. However, after a tumultuous weekend, underlined by the elimination of four Playoff drivers, some heavy feelings pester the collective NASCAR community. 

23 team spotter Freddie Kraft recently raised concerns about a potential “weak link” among the remaining Round of 12 contenders heading to Kansas next weekend. But the real question is: does this driver deserve to be in the championship running, especially with names like Ty Gibbs, Brad Keselowski, and Martin Truex Jr. left out?

Who’s the weak link in the Round of 12?

After the Bristol Night Race, Chase Briscoe (-7), Alex Bowman (-7), Daniel Suárez (-6), and Austin Cindric (-4) are the four drivers currently below the Round of 8 cut-line. As one could tell, there’s not much separating the lot from each other. And the standings could see a massive switch-up as soon as Sunday when the Hollywood Casino 400 kicks off the second round of eliminations at Kansas. But in Freddie Kraft’s eyes, Daniel Suarez might have just been a little too lucky, making it past the first.

On the September 23rd episode of AskDBC, Kraft and his spotter friends, Brett Griffin, and TJ Majors answered questions for their dedicated listeners post-Bristol. One of the various questions probed the cast on who they thought was the most surprising driver to have made it to the Round of 12. The #23 car spotter replied first, but what he said could leave the grandstands all but a little divided. In his words, “The biggest surprise for me is probably Suarez… All the play races, Cindric’s upfront. So it didn’t surprise me that he bagged a bunch of stage points there and then ran well at Watkins Glen. I didn’t think Suarez was gonna get out of the first round.”

Kraft elaborated on his initial sentiment, “And I said to Doug yesterday, I was with Doug Campbell, who spots for Cindric… I said, you got to be happy that the guys that got eliminated… If you’re picking who you’re gonna race against, you’d rather race against Daniel Suarez than two Gibbs cars, a thousand percent.” Kraft isn’t wrong in hindsight. If we compare wins only; even though one-half of Joe Gibbs Racing has gone winless, same as Trackhouse Racing, the JGR Camrys still outscore the Trackhouse Camaros 6-to-1. 

And to top it off, the two JGR drivers who got eliminated in Bristol are running a better statistical season than Daniel Suarez, Chase Briscoe, and Austin Cindric combined. All of them trail Martin Truex Jr and Ty Gibbs in stage wins, stage points, laps led, top-5s, and top-10s this season. For that matter, Alex Bowman is the only driver inside the bubble with more top-5 and top-10 finishes than the Gibbs duo, but he’s still behind them in stage points and stage wins. Surely, if all Gibbs cars made it to the Round of 12, the next cutoff race at Charlotte wouldn’t be as kind to those who pulled through as the previous one was after Bristol. But then again, anything can happen in NASCAR.

Regardless, although TJ Majors would not speak on the issue, for Brett Griffin, the surprise Playoff driver was Chase Briscoe. He explained, “Because the team (Stewart-Haas) is going out of business. I mean, essentially. I know that the Haas Factory Team is going to stick around. But there’s a lot up against the guy for him to come through in that round. Very impressive…” Griffin reiterated himself, “He was flying yesterday.” Briscoe’s rise exhibits the intended thrill of this win-and-in head-to-head Playoff format. Anyone can win on any day. And that only endorses the parity that NASCAR strives to achieve as it moves forward.

However, the question remains: is Daniel Suarez truly the weak link in this chapter of the story?

Daniel Suarez balancing both luck & skill in the Playoffs

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Yes, Daniel Suarez finished 31st under the lights on Saturday. Technically, the #99 was the second-worst performing Playoff team in Bristol, only behind Harrison Burton, who finished 35th and got eliminated from the postseason after suffering power steering issues. But in the last few laps, Suarez showed everyone exactly why he owns the spot he currently owns. Ty Gibbs, who overcame a speeding penalty earlier in the race, overheated his tires too fast trying to lap the #99. This resulted in the #54 team falling from a top-10 running spot down to 15th at the end of all scheduled laps.

Gibbs, who had finished eighth in Stage 1, felt the points deficit burn through his championship advances with each position he dropped in the closing laps. On the flip side, Suarez ran a masterclass in defensive driving, although he admitted to struggling for speed the entire race. “Since [Friday] when we unloaded the car for first practice, we just didn’t have the speed,” he told the media after his race. “As you know, with a short amount of practice, qualifying, and going to the race, if you don’t have speed out of the trailer, it’s very, very difficult to bring it back to speed. We made it better, but it wasn’t good enough.”

If you look closely at his statistics, the Monterrey native is the only driver inside the bubble, barring Alex Bowman, to have a top-5 finish in the last three elimination races. Sure, he faltered quite a bit in Bristol. But he followed up his Atlanta P3 with a P15 at Watkins Glen before he did stumble. Maybe Kraft’s opinion of Daniel Suarez being easy pickings for the rest of the Playoff field could turn out true by the end of the ROVAL race in a few weeks. But one thing’s for sure: luck might get you to the starting line, but it takes more than just skill to win even a single NASCAR race.

Now, can he take his chances to the next level? To find out, we must first head to Kansas next weekend.