Katherine Legge breaks silence on her private phone call with Daniel Suarez following the Phoenix disaster

Katherine Legge revealed that she'd made several phone calls to address her challenging race this past week at Phoenix. One of those calls was to Daniel Suarez, whom she had collided with on her race-ending spin. Katherine said that Suarez held no hard feelings, describing him "sweet" and "understanding".

Legge, who'd previously raced in Indycar, IMSA and Formula E, made her NASCAR Cup series debut with Live Fast Motorsports on Sunday, March 10. Starting at 37th position, Katherine Legge experienced an early spin in the race but managed to stay clear of any damage. Later, on Lap 215, Legge spun again at turn 2 and hit Suarez, who was at P6 at that time.

Suarez endured a broken steering mechanism as a result and dropped to 26th position. Meanwhile, Katherine Legge was forced to retire her damaged Chevrolet for a 30th-place finish.

Speaking on her call with Suarez, she said,

"Daniel was very sweet, actually, very kind and understanding. He was like, ‘Listen, I don’t blame you. Of course, what happened was less than ideal for me.’ Which I said, ‘Listen, it was not intention. I know that doesn’t make that any better, but I was trying my best to stay out of trouble actually, and it was just a mistake.’” (Via Racer)

While Daniel Suarez held no blame against Legge, he instead questioned NASCAR for allowing drivers with little experience to race in the sport.

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Katherine Legge seeks to prove herself in NASCAR

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Despite her struggles at Phoenix, Katherine Legge remains optimistic on her future with the sport, expressing her desire to compete and prove her mettle. She expressed belief in her abilities as a race car driver to overcome the recent setback and said:

"I had somebody from another team call me today and say, part of me thought that you were going to say, OK, I don’t want to do this anymore or this isn’t for me,” Legge said. “I was like, hell no. You don’t know me very well, but all this does is make me dig my heels in and go, you know what, I’m going to prove everybody wrong, because I know that I’m a good race car driver and this was just a blip in the matrix," she said. (Via Racer)

Katherine Legge, 44, has previously raced in the NASCAR Xfinity Series during 2018- 2023. Out of her five starts, she managed a best finish of 14th place at Road America in 2018. After her debut in Phoenix Raceway, Legge became the first woman (since Danica Patrick in 2018) to compete in a Cup series race.