Daniel Suarez and Michael McDowell fight during qualifying at Phoenix
There was a fight after the first round of qualifying Friday at Phoenix. Seriously.
Daniel Suarez and Michael McDowell had a disagreement about the space each other had on the track during the round. Suarez went over to confront McDowell about the on-track problem and McDowell responded with a shove as he saw Suarez coming toward him.
Things escalated from there, as Suarez quickly got the takedown on McDowell.
Nice takedown of Michael McDowell by Daniel Suarez pic.twitter.com/WbjkDX5Csf
— Nick Bromberg (@NickBromberg) March 8, 2019
The funniest part of the whole ordeal was McDowell tugging on Suarez’s leg as Suarez was being held down.
After they were separated, the two drivers discussed their differences and went on their separate ways. Suarez was unhappy that McDowell was in his way while he tried to advance to the second round of qualifying.
“Just lack of respect. Track position is big in these races these days and you have to qualify well to have a good stall on pit road ...” Suarez said. “Just a lack of respect. Everyone here in the garage knows the second [qualifying] lap is the good one. You have to try to get out of the way is someone is coming for a hot lap. He didn’t. He killed me in one corner. I thought he was going to get out of the way in that second corner and he didn’t and I almost wrecked him. And I think he was disappointed because I was trying to wreck him afterwards. But that’s racing.”
McDowell termed it a “miscommunication” between the Ford drivers.
“Just miscommunication on the race track. We all kind of waited until the end and you just had a lot of traffic. So just unfortunate. He was upset that I held him up on his good lap and then he tried to crash us. So I just didn’t appreciate it.”
Ryan Blaney wins pole
Ryan Blaney will start first in Sunday’s race. It’s his first pole of the season and the sixth of his career.
He beat out Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin for the top spot in the third round of qualifying. Blaney is the only member of Team Penske who hasn’t won a race so far in the 2019 season. Brad Keselowski won at Atlanta two weeks ago and Joey Logano won last week at Las Vegas.
Starting lineup
1. Ryan Blaney
2. Chase Elliott
3. Denny Hamlin
4. Kyle Busch
5. Brad Keselowski
6. Alex Bowman
7. William Byron
8. Kevin Harvick
9. Martin Truex Jr.
10. Erik Jones
11. Daniel Hemric
12. Joey Logano
13. Austin Dillon
14. Aric Almirola
15. Jimmie Johnson
16. Kurt Busch
17. Paul Menard
18. Ryan Newman
19. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
20. Ty Dillon
21. Ryan Preece
22. Chris Buescher
23. Bubba Wallace
24. Corey LaJoie
25. Matt DiBenedetto
26. Clint Bowyer
27. Michael McDowell
28. Daniel Suarez
29. David Ragan
30. Matt Tifft
31. Kyle Larson
32. Landon Cassill
33. Ross Chastain
34. Cody Ware
35. Quin Houff
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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