Suarez heads the queue for 2026 Spire seat

Daniel Suarez is a candidate to land at Spire Motorsports next season after the organization confirmed earlier this week that it will part ways with Justin Haley.

Suarez and Haley have been in the rumor mill for much of the summer. For Suarez, it came after he and Trackhouse Racing announced their impending split back in early July. The 33-year-old has been quiet about his future but has remained confident he will land a ride despite the lack of openings. 

In September, Suarez told RACER he hoped to have his future announced in the next month. He also expressed that the best from Daniel Suarez had yet to be seen.

“Not yet,” Suarez said at the time. “It’s not just me as a driver, but everything you have to have around you. You have to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. At one point, I had that a few years back, but I was missing several things (as a driver). Then last year, we had a pretty strong team, but a few things changed here and there for this year, and it hasn’t been the same. 

“But if I’m able to find that team and group of people who trust me to lead the team in the right direction, I think we can do great things. Just like 23XI and some of the other strong organizations. Not the big powerhouse organizations like Hendrick or Gibbs, because it doesn’t matter who’s driving, those things are going to be fast. But, yeah, I think we have a lot of potential and we just have to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.”

Haley, meanwhile, had his name thrown into the rumor mill because of the struggles of the No. 7 team at Spire Motorsports. The organization brought Haley back into the fold in late 2024 and paired him with championship-winning crew chief Rodney Childers for this season. However, the partnership was short-lived as Childers and Spire mutually parted ways in April. It came a few weeks after Robert Smith, the car chief, left the team.

There have been a few bright spots in an underwhelming and disappointing season for Haley and company. Haley is 31st in the championship standings with three races remaining.

"This is a decision that was not taken lightly,” Jeff Dickerson, the co-owner of Spire Motorsports, said in a statement about Haley’s release.

“Justin has been a member of the Spire family since he was a teenager. We’ve watched Justin grow from a young driver trying to make his mark in the sport to a proven winner. He helped strengthen our organization into what it is today. He made us winners and returned home after forging his own path in the Cup Series. Justin is the embodiment of a true racer who has quietly become a respected competitor within the NASCAR garage and will be an incredible asset to his next team.”

Suarez will go into his 10th season as a Cup Series driver in 2026. He has two career wins.

Haley will complete his fifth full season as a Cup Series driver with the season finale next month. He earned Spire Motorsports its first – and thus far only – Cup Series victory in 2019. He has also won races and competed for a championship in both the Truck and Xfinity Series.

“I think it's just been interesting,” Haley said of his season earlier this summer. “That's really all I can think about when I think about our season. Obviously, I feel like at the start of the season, we were pretty good, and then the car chief and crew chief change happened. We kind of went through a section through May and June where I thought we were pretty decent; had good speed, but just caught up in a lot of incidents that tanked us back in the points.

“But again, I feel like anytime we got into an incident, it really wasn't our fault. It was just a bad stretch. So we've tried to climb back through the metric and have decent days… Obviously, it’s been a pretty difficult season, in general, with where we are in the points standing and what we've gone through. It’s definitely not what I expected when I started in Daytona, to go through all we've been through. But just trying to find a little bit of a silver lining, and get some good finishes by the end of the year.”