Dismissing media who wanted to ask about his post-race spat with Daniel Suarez, Ross Chastain responded “not today, boys,” but admitted he should have said “see you Tuesday” before a pre-scheduled press briefing.
Chastain said after moving away from Suarez that he just didn’t understand everything that happened between them and didn’t want to say bad things. Since then, he’s watched all the video footage and came away with the same feeling he’s had for some time: There’s a liability issue with his former teammate.
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“Yeah, at the time I was really hot and angry and I would do things differently if I had time to think about it,” Chastain said at the NASCAR Productions facility. “I wouldn’t have swerved him after the race and if I could have gone back, I wouldn’t have pushed him, of course.
“I was just over the conversation he was trying to have, I wanted him to leave, I asked him to leave and I wanted him to back off. He was too close and just didn’t want to hear anything else he was saying because he wasn’t taking any responsibility and I wanted him to.”
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Chastain repeatedly referenced Tuesday that he believes Suarez doesn’t take personal responsibility often enough. But ultimately, Chastain was angry because he was frustrated with the way his No. 1 team was performing Sunday in Phoenix.
“It was unfair in the grand scheme of things to react that way and it wasn’t fair,” he added.
The on-track incident leading up to this event was nothing short of difficult during the final three laps on Sunday. Suarez said his car started to fall, but he wanted to run as Chastain approached.
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Chastain gave Suarez the middle finger on the back and said he wanted to talk about it, but was pushed aside once the conversation got heated.
“I was actually very proud of myself in the way I handled the situation because the Daniel of three years ago probably would have kicked his butt,” Suárez said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “But I finally figured it out and I’ll give you a few reasons. Reason No. 1, to beat him up and put him on the ground, it was going to cost me $50,000. Reason No. 2 is that sponsors never like that. Sponsors like exposure, but they don’t like bad media, bad PR. And reason No. 3, I mean, if I want to fight Ross – and he knows that – it’s not going to last five seconds.
“So what am I going to gain from this? I wasn’t going to get into anything. I wasn’t trying to fight him, I was just trying to understand his thought process.”
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Chastain said he wrote Suarez a long text, “so I could pronounce it the way I wanted so he knew where I stood” and that they “played telephone” in the days that followed. Chastain says they just don’t get along and that’s okay because not everyone gets along.
“It was longer than this weekend,” Chastain said. “We went through the end of our time together when we were teammates and I don’t think it’s bad to not get along with everyone.
“Go back to my childhood, and you’re taught to get along with everyone, but as you grow up and work in this great sport of NASCAR, you’re not, and that’s OK. I don’t agree with the way he runs things and… what stood out to me on pit road is there’s never any accountability.
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“There was zero percent on his side, and not just last weekend, but it’s just a bigger thing and everything came rushing back to me quickly. I could have handled it better, but I’m seeing red at that moment, because I just needed a little accountability from him. There’s always a reason why it’s never his fault.”
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Daniel Suarez says he ‘lost a lot of respect’ for Ross Chastain after Vegas comments
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