Chastain, Suárez find positives in Trackhouse's growth, SVG's addition for 2025

Change has been a common companion to Trackhouse Racing in its brief but rapidly evolving existence in the NASCAR world the last four years. The 2025 season has more growth in store for the Justin Marks-founded organization, which will expand from two to three Cup Series teams next year.

New Zealand import Shane van Gisbergen makes his move to NASCAR’s top series next season in the No. 88 Chevrolet, joining returning drivers Ross Chastain and Daniel Suárez on Trackhouse’s full-time roster. SVG was tapped for the role in August, when Trackhouse announced the acquisition of a third charter for Cup Series competition.

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Van Gisbergen set his course toward stock-car racing after a dazzling Cup Series debut in winning the 2023 Chicago Street Race inaugural. That one-off victory opened the door for more races with Trackhouse and a full-season campaign in the Xfinity Series, where he won three times as a rookie in 2024.

Both Chastain and Suárez say they see the positives in Trackhouse’s expansion, both from the influx of personnel and resources needed to operate the third team and from gaining a trusted teammate.

“I view it as glass half-full,” Chastain said Nov. 9, during NASCAR’s season-ending weekend at Phoenix Raceway. “From the team side, engineering and crew chief stuff, the guys and girls that are going to be coming in, I’m excited to get them in the shop full-time soon and start working with our group after we all take a break and kind of reset. It’s something that I just see a lot of potential there, and Shane from the driving side and the preparation side, we’ve already been leaning on each other in something as simple as going for runs together, and then as complicated as DIL (driver-in-the-loop simulator) time together, we’re learning how we’re going to structure that for next year.”

Suárez indicated that SVG’s addition should bolster Trackhouse’s road-course program, drawing on his background from the Australian-based Supercars Championship tour. Conversely, van Gisbergen can lean on his two established teammates as he builds experience on oval tracks. His first race on a NASCAR oval was just 15 months ago, at Indianapolis Raceway Park in a Craftsman Truck Series event.

“Already in road-course races, he’s going to bring a lot to the table,” Suárez said in Phoenix. “He’s extremely experienced in road-course stuff, the most experienced of probably the entire field, and we’re super excited to work more closely together for road-course stuff. For ovals, I think it’s going to be a learning process for him. He’s still already learning a lot. He’s still in that process of trying to figure out what he needs, and it’s going to be a long process because obviously the Xfinity Series, we all know that is one thing and the Cup Series is a completely different level. So it’s going to be a process, and he’s going to have to be patient when it comes to the ovals in the Cup Series, but he knows. He’s a very experienced and good race car driver, so he’s going to figure it out.”

Both of Trackhouse’s returning drivers have designs on rebuilding in 2025. Chastain did not qualify for the Cup Series Playoffs for the first time in three years, missing the 16-driver field by 33 points. He scratched the win column in late September at Kansas Speedway, but lamented how he and his No. 1 Chevy team missed out at converting its late-race chances during the regular season.

That said, Chastain said he had no intentions of switching to a more conservative approach.

“We did it at Kansas, but we didn’t do it earlier in the year when we had the opportunity,” Chastain said. “So, lost a lot of points in overtime throughout the year. High risk, high reward. I went for wins throughout the summer, late spring or the springtime. Went for wins, and if I had just laid up and went a little further back, I’d have had a lot better finish and would have made the playoffs. But I’ll go for those wins every time.”

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Suárez reached the postseason with an early clinching victory in a nail-biter at Atlanta Motor Speedway in February, but the No. 99 team’s performance lagged through the springtime months. He reached the playoffs’ Round of 12 and had glimmers of improvement in the second half of the season.

The year was a noteworthy one on the personal side as Suárez became a United States citizen on June 18 and married Julia Piquet on July 30. He enters 2025 in the final year of his contract after signing a one-year extension in August.

“I felt like it was a good year. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t amazing, either,” Suárez said. “We had our ups and downs. There were a couple months in the middle of the year that were very, very bad, and there were also a couple months, I would say, lately that we were actually pretty strong. So I feel like a lot to build on, a good year to build on. We know our strengths and our weaknesses, and already we’re looking forward to build from there, and hopefully we can make our group even stronger for next year.”