Gaunt Brothers Racing made it official Tuesday that Daniel Suarez will drive the team’s No. 96 Toyota Camry in the Cup series this season.
The team, which has run a limited Cup schedule since 2017, will run the full season. Gaunt Brothers Racing will not have a charter.
“It’s great to be back with Toyota and back in the NASCAR Cup Series,” the 28-year-old Suárez said in a statement from the team. “My NASCAR career started off really well and Toyota was a very big part of that. To have them in my corner again gives me a lot of confidence. Gaunt Brothers Racing has something to prove and so do I. We’re committed to each other and we’re going to build each other up.”
This will be the fourth Cup season for Suarez. He won the 2016 Xfinity Series title before moving to Cup. He drove two seasons for Joe Gibbs Racing before moving to Stewart-Haas Racing for 2019. He was replaced by Cole Custer after last season. Suarez has yet to make the Cup playoffs.
Dave Winston will serve as Suárez’s crew chief. Winston was at Richard Childress Racing where he was vehicle performance group engineer and also the race engineer for Daniel Hemric. Winston has served as a crew chief before, spending 2014 at BK Racing with driver Alex Bowman and 2016 at Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing with driver Michael McDowell.
Coca-Cola and CommScope will continue their partnerships with Suarez. The team did not announce how many races those companies will be on the car.
“We’ve been working toward this moment since Gaunt Brothers Racing joined the Cup Series in 2017,” said Marty Gaunt, president, Gaunt Brothers Racing, in a statement. “We’ve made steady improvement every year, but bringing Daniel on board allows us to take a giant leap forward. We’re investing in each other. He’s not content to just be here and neither are we. We’ve been very strategic in everything we’ve done, and between our partnership with Toyota and the resources now available to us, we can take that next step and deliver for Daniel and all of our partners.”
Suarez told reporters Tuesday in a conference call with reporters that “in the last couple of weeks, I have been going to bed thinking that my goal is to take Gaunt Brothers Racing … that some people know as a part-time team, to a winning team. That is going to happen. It’s going to take some time but it’s going to happen.”
Gaunt said Tuesday night in a conference call with reporters that Toyota Racing Development will provide all the engines for the team. TRD provides engines for Joe Gibbs Racing and Leavine Family Racing.
Gaunt said that acquiring a charter remains a priority for the organization. A charter guarantees a team a starting position in each race.
“It’s top of mine,” Gaunt said of the goal of acquiring a charter. “We made some phone calls, unfortunately there is not a charter available at the present time but it is high on our priority list. If one comes available we’ll be the first person to be at that table to have those conversations.”
Suarez replaces NASCAR on NBC analyst Parker Kligerman, who ran 14 of the team’s 15 races last season.
