Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Daniel Suárez of Trackhouse Racing. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. The full version is available on the 12 Questions podcast.
1. You must pick one chore or obligation to do every day for a year. But if you do it the whole year, you never have to do it again for the rest of your life. So what would you like to knock out forever?
Making my bed in the morning. I struggle to do that. Julia (Piquet, his fiancée) helps me a lot. If it wasn’t for Julia, there would be several days in between making the bed.
2. Can you describe how you are as a passenger in a street car?
Very bad, and everyone says that. I have come to realize it’s actually true. When I’m on the passenger side, I’m expecting the person driving to react and do things as if I was driving. And it doesn’t happen like that.
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Sometimes I don’t have a filter to say things on my mind, so if we’re behind a truck and there’s a gap to go to the left lane, I’ll tell people: “Hey, do you like the truck or what? Why are you stuck here?”
3. What is an app on your phone that you love using and think more people should know about?
WhatsApp. It’s pretty much the texting form we use in Mexico, Brazil (where Piquet’s family is from) and Europe. For some reason here in America, people don’t use it a lot. But that’s probably the app I use the most. I don’t use it with people here in the U.S. because people here do regular texting, but with my family and friends in Mexico and Brazil and everywhere around the world, we use WhatsApp.
4. What do you do to make yourself feel better when you’re having a crappy day?
I love exercising, and that really helps me a lot to disconnect from a bad time on or off the track. And the other thing for me that is almost like meditation at times is working on old cars. Julia tells me all the time that the only time I can actually get rid of my phone for hours is when I’m either working out or working on my cars. I enjoy that a lot and time goes by very quick. That’s a good way to relax and come back a little fresher.
5. I’ve been asking readers to send me advice questions they need people to answer, and I’m matching each one up with a different driver. So this one I thought would be good for you. This person says: “I’m wanting to buy a classic Volkswagen Beetle, but I’m having trouble convincing my wife it’s worth it. What can I say to her to help her realize that this would be a good purchase?”
That’s a good question. First of all, the Beetles and the (VW) Buses and the Karmann Ghias are the people’s cars. These were cars made for very affordable prices and there are a lot of people who, at one point in their lives, had one or learned how to drive on one. That makes these cars very unique. If you look at the prices of these cars for the last 20 years, they’ve gone up tremendously — and I feel like they’re going to continue to do that. They’re still very affordable cars, but they’ve increased in value quite a bit.
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So it’s an investment?
It is. Julia and my mom don’t believe that when I’m buying all these cars, but that’s always my excuse. (Laughs)
6. Let’s say I’m a very amateur Spanish speaker and I hear a native Spanish speaker who is bilingual. Should I start speaking Spanish to them and try to practice my Spanish with them? Or is that considered rude because I know so little of it? When is the right time to do that?
I can only speak for myself, but personally, I enjoy it a lot when people try to speak Spanish to me — even though 99 percent of the time it’s pretty bad. I enjoy it because people are making an effort. I go back to 10 years ago when I couldn’t speak English, and I feel like I was exactly the same way. The effort means a lot.
Every single weekend, I have at least 10 or 15 fans who at least try to talk to me in Spanish. It’s like, “Hola amigo! Como estas?” The very basic lines. But I enjoy that, because they know that’s a good way to connect with me. People call me “amigo” 100 times every weekend, and that’s something unique. I really appreciate that.
That is a nice thing, with the way you use “amigo” and the “Daniel’s Amigos” group. I feel like it makes people want to be your amigo. It’s like a friend club, where fans might not feel that with other drivers.
I totally agree. And listen, regardless of whether you speak Spanish or not, you know what “amigo” means. I feel very lucky a lot of people call me that. Regardless of the mood I’m in, when someone says, “Hey, amigo!” it makes me smile. It’s not just because it’s my language, but because they’re not saying that to any other driver — just myself.
7. This is a wild-card question. You got engaged last year. So obviously, there’s some wedding planning involved with that. What percent do you want to be involved in wedding planning?
Probably 20 percent, just because I would love to have an input in the place. The feeling of the place — I love plants a lot, I love the beach a lot and I love the woods even more. I would love to have an input when it comes to that kind of stuff. But when it comes to the size of the wedding, the time of the wedding, the amount of people — I don’t really care. That’s Julia’s department.
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8. In your career, what is the deal that came closest to happening that ended up not working out?
I don’t even know if I can talk about that. There was especially one that comes to my mind that nobody knows, but it was very, very close to happening. I will say within weeks of happening. And Carl (Edwards) retired, and that changed everything (with Suárez being elevated to the No. 19 car in the Cup Series). But that is one thing I’ll just have to keep with me. It happened a while back, but I’m the kind of guy where I just prefer to keep those things to myself.
9. Who is someone you’d be starstruck by when meeting them?
I love soccer, and I’m a big fan of Cristiano Ronaldo. He would be one of the only guys, along with Lionel Messi, where I would be like, “Holy s—, this is a guy I’ve been watching for 15 years.”
When it comes to Formula One drivers, I was pretty stoked when I met Julia’s dad (three-time F1 world champion Nelson Piquet) for the very first time because he’s a legend in the sport.
10. What is the single most important skill a race car driver can possess?
To work well under pressure. That’s extremely important. In racing, I remember having pressure since I was 13 or 14 years old. You have to really develop that skill to be able to perform well under pressure. You can be super talented, you can be the best race car driver in the world, but if you freeze under pressure, you won’t be able to get things done in big scenarios like winning a championship or qualifying.
That’s really interesting because when I play mini-golf with my friends, I’m really good up until the pressure moment, and then I choke every time.
Exactly. That tells you. There should be no difference when that pressure moment comes and before it. Your swing should be exactly the same. But the mental aspect — the mind is so powerful and it can change things to a positive way or to a negative way in a heartbeat.
11. What life lessons from a young age stick with you and affect your daily decisions as an adult?
My family really had to sacrifice a lot for me to have an opportunity. I came from a very humble family, and we didn’t have a lot growing up. So when I was … trying to make it into racing, I always promised myself I was going to make the most out of it — just because I was able to see all the sacrifices my family was doing.
I used that as fuel for myself to continue to push forward. As I got older and I was able to make it into the national series, winning championships and getting to the Cup Series, I feel like that still applies today. We have adversity every single weekend. We have pressure moments every single weekend. … Thank God my family is not struggling financially anymore, but I remember those days and it still works as fuel to continue to push very hard.
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12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next person. The last one was Carson Hocevar. He wanted to ask about the language barrier you had to overcome in your early days of NASCAR. He says: “What was the funniest or most interesting story you recall because of the language barrier that you were dealing with?”
I was so nervous of doing well in the K&N (East) Series at the time, in 2011 or 2012, because they were going to interview me. (Laughs) I told that to my mechanic: “Man, I want to do well, but I hate when people come to interview me because I have no idea what to say. I look like a dummy.”
That mechanic is a great friend of mine today and he’s still around the sport — he works at Stewart-Haas Racing as a shop mechanic and his name is “Walleye” (Michael Allen). From that day, every time I was going to the shop, he would grab a tool and come up to me as if he was doing an interview: “Hey Daniel, what do you think about the race? You did very good. Can you give me your thoughts?” And honestly, that helped me a lot. That guy really helped me practice my interviews.
The next interview is with Christopher Bell. Do you have a question I might be able to ask him?
What would he credit to being a good road course driver? Most of the road-course drivers who are strong on a weekly basis have some sort of road-course background. There are a few — Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Bell — where if I see their background, I wouldn’t expect that. So what would he give his credit to being a good road-course driver?
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(Top photo: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)