Daniel Suarez finally won his first NASCAR Cup title at Sonoma, becoming the first Mexican to win the highest level in motorsports, but who are the other foreign-born race winners in cup history? What motorsports symbol is on the list?
Jim Roper did it first and Richard Petty did it most often – and for Daniel Suarez it never was.
It would take 195 races to start, nearly six years and a handful of teams, but Suarez can finally call himself a NASCAR Cup Series winner.
The 30-year-old claimed a victory for the 99th Crew at Sonoma after blocking Roush Fenway Keselowski’s Chris Boecher’s lead on the final stage on one of the NASCAR traditional road courses.
Suarez is the 12th winner of the season as 16 playoff berths continue to fill up quickly, but both Trackhouses are closed, following Ross Chastain’s wins at Circuit of the Americas and Talladega.
Suarez is the fifth foreign-born race winner in NASCAR Cup history. Who are the other four – including a global motorsport icon and F1 favourite?
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NASCAR Foreign-born Winners
Including Suarez, there have now been 202 race winners in the Cup series, and appropriately, the first foreign-born driver to win is also the 100th driver to claim success.
In his long and busy career, Mario Andretti has seen it all – and earned accolades for displaying it.
Born in 1940 in what was then the Kingdom of Italy – now Croatia, Andretti is a motorsport icon.
He is the only driver in history to win the Indy 500 title, the IndyCar title, the F1 world title and the Daytona 500.
Andretti claimed success at the 1969 Daytona 500, one of only 13 games in what would become the Cup Series.
Such is Andretti’s versatility and longevity, the only major race he’s missing from his resume is an outright victory at Le Mans 24 Hours – despite placing second overall and first in the WSC class in 1995.
The only North American-born foreign driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race is Earl Ross.
Born in Canada, Ross was on the NASCAR scene in the early 1970s, around the same time Andretti moved to Formula 1.
Driving the #52 Junior Johnson & Associates Ross home Chevrolet a lap from Buddy Baker in Martinsville in 1974 to take his only win.
Barrel rolling in NASCAR from F1
Perhaps with a little more luck, Juan Pablo Montoya will be Formula One world champion – having had the speed to worry the victorious Michael Schumacher in the early 2000s.
JPM’s career collapsed in 2006 after an unlucky switch from Williams to McLaren in 2005.
Montoya boss Ron Dennis and McLaren have always been an interesting combination, and the Colombian didn’t help him with a shoulder injury playing tennis – or because he fell off a motorcycle – and missed two races.
Anyway, after getting stuck in a pile of eight cars at Turn 1 of the 2006 United States GP in Indianapolis, Montoya was out to Chip Ganassi in NASCAR.
He competed full time with Ganassi and later Earnhardt Ganassi Racing between 2007 and 2013.
His first win came at Sonoma in 2007, while he followed that up with a win at NASCAR’s other traditional road track – Watkins Glen in 2010.
Oh, and replacing Montoya at McLaren in Formula 1? Hamilton appointed for the 2007 season.
The only foreign-born driver on the NASCAR winners list hails from Australia – and has also been declared the winner on a track on the road.
After an impressive career in V8 Supercars, Marcus Ambrose moved to NASCAR full time in 2009.
By 2011 he was driving the iconic #43 of Richard Petty.
Ambrose twice won the Cup Series, while the Tasmanian won at Watkins Glen in 2011 and 2012.
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