November 14, 2019 | By Lee Spencer

Suarez out, Custer in the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford next year

MIAMI—Daniel Suarez and Stewart-Haas Racing will part ways at season’s end.

An announcement could come as early as Friday morning that Cole Custer will replace Suarez in the No. 41 Ford.

Team owner Gene Haas told RacinBoys.com last Sunday, “If you don’t win races, you’ve got to have good sponsorship. Until we see a check on our desk, we won’t see much of anything.”

Suarez, 27, joined SHR at the start of the 2019 season and is in his third year in NASCAR’s premier series. The Monterrey, Mexican is currently 17th in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup standings with one pole, four top-fives and 11 top 10s. His best result of the season has been twin third-place finishes at Texas Motor Speedway.

According to sources, Suarez’s representation has spoken with Front Row Motorsports and Richard Childress Racing. RCR could potentially run Suarez in a full-time Xfinity Series ride along with a limited Cup schedule.

Custer, in his third year in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, has qualified for the Championship 4 Round for the second-straight season. Haas said Custer’s advancement is predicated on one thing and one thing only, “He has to win. If he wants to come to Cup, he has to win.”

Custer, 21, has done just that as he has climbed the stock car ladder. This year, the Ladera Ranch, Californian has won seven races and six poles, along with 16 top fives and 23 top 10 finishes.

“We’ll have to see how it all plays out,” Haas said. “We have three (Cup) cars that haven’t won a race this year.

“The 4 team is obviously performing. The other teams we really need to look at from a performance standpoint. They’re all really good guys. They all get along great. But this is racing, you have to perform. You never know. There might be some changeups, trying to rearrange team members to see if we can get more performance out of them.”

Note: When Custer was asked about his status for next season during the Championship 4 Media Day, he replied, "Right now, I'm just trying to focus on the championship. I've really tried to kind of stay out of it, I mean, honestly, this is a really big weekend for us, I mean to win a championship in the Xfinity Series, so if we can do that, that's probably my focus this next week."