BROOKLYN, Mich – Sunday’s Consumers Energy 400 at the Michigan International Speedway couldn’t have gone any better for Daniel Suarez unless he was the one celebrating in victory lane. See, Suarez entered this weekend’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race 23 points behind the 16th and final playoff spot. He had just four races to make up 23 points and to pass two drivers.

The drivers he was chasing – well they all had problems in Sunday’s race. First, it started off when Jimmie Johnson was trying to push too hard in passing Clint Bowyer and got his No. 48 Chevrolet into the Turn 2 SAFER barrier on Lap 15 as a result. Due to that, he had damage on the right side of his car and had to hit pit road for repairs. A few short laps later, he was back down pit road for another tire that went down. Johnson, finished 38th and 37th respectively in the two stages and would come away with a 34th place result.

Then, Clint Bowyer crashed on Lap 136 and would finish 37th. Ryan Newman didn’t score any stage points and could only come home 12th.

Those were the three drivers ahead of Suarez in the standings and they’d finish 12-34-37 and combined to get three stage points for the day.

Meanwhile, Suarez brought his No. 41 Ford home fifth for his first top five finish since a fourth place run at this very same race track back in June. That allowed him to make up 17 points on the day.

“It was a decent day for us,” said Suarez. “We had ups and downs. There was something wrong, a bad set of tires or something in that second stage. We couldn’t control it. The team was able to overcome that with good adjustments and they put me back in the game with track position and we were able to get a good result from there.”