NASCAR Cup Series: Daniel Suarez Wins Atlanta By .003 Seconds In Photo Finish

(NASCAR via Getty Images

Trackhouse Racing driver Daniel Suarez won his second career NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday in a wild one at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Suarez held off Ryan Blaney by .003 seconds with Kyle Busch .007 seconds back in a three-wide photo finish.

The race set a track record with 48 lead changes and the highest percentage of cars involved in wrecks, which came across 11 caution periods.

The race was red-flagged with 19 laps to go and a final yellow came out with 12 to go, setting up a five-lap sprint to the finish.

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Suarez — who was involved in a wreck on lap 2 of the race that collected 16 cars for another Atlanta record — took the restart on pole on the inside with Blaney beside him and fellow Chevy driver Busch behind him ready to push.

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Suarez and Blaney traded the lead until the final turn when Blaney was on the inside and Suarez was making a run on the outside, just as Kyle Busch pulled up in the middle of them for a drag race to the finish.

Suarez was behind them until the last few yards, when he picked up enough side draft to pull ahead at the line.

The result was the second-closest finish in NASCAR history, behind the 2003 Darlington and 2011 Talladega spring races, which are tied at .002. The win was Suarez’s first in the Cup Series since the 2022 Sonoma Raceway event.

The 32-year-old Mexican national busted open a taco-shaped piñata to celebrate, as has become his tradition.

“It was so damn close, man, it was so damn close,” Suarez said on Fox after the race. “It was good racing.”

Earlier in February, Suarez won an exhibition NASCAR Mexico Series race held at the L.A. Coliseum after the Busch Light Clash.

The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Las Vegas Speedway next on March 3 at 3:30 p.m. ET.

Click here for the full results from the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway

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