Keselowski aims to build on Ford's strong start with back-to-back Vegas wins

By Tom Jensen
Published

Team Penske comes into Las Vegas Motor Speedway in a great position to capitalize on its already strong early season results in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.

Penske driver Brad Keselowski, who will appear on tonight’s NASCAR Race Hub (6 p.m. ET, FS1) won last weekend in Atlanta and has been victorious twice in the last three Las Vegas races, including the 2016 Kobalt 400.

Teammate Joey Logano has been fast, too, winning the season-opening Advance Auto Parts Clash exhibition race at Daytona International Speedway.

And while there have been only two points race so far this season, the Fords that Penske and Stewart-Haas Racing and a couple of other smaller teams field have been drubbing the competition.

Of the 525 laps run in the Daytona 500 and the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta, Fords have led 389 circuits, to just 116 for Chevrolet and 20 for Toyota. SHR’s Kurt Busch won the Daytona 500, with Keselowski delivering Ford another victory at Atlanta.

And one more little interesting nugget: In the last 100 Cup races, just four drivers have posted double-digit victory totals, including leader Jimmie Johnson (14)  of Hendrick Motorsports and SHR’s Kevin Harvick (10).



But Penske is the only team with two divers to win more than 10 times in that period — Keselowski has won 11 of the last 100 Cup races, while Logano has won 12.

Team owner Roger Penske said SHR’s move to Ford has made both teams better already.

“We knew coming in with Stewart-Haas that they were going to be guys that could set a bar for us,” said Penske. “In fact, we built some chassis for them before Daytona, some center sections, and we had our cars in the wind tunnel and compared them.  So we know what they have and they know what we have.”

And that’s good for Penske and SHR as well.

“From a comparison standpoint, I think that we need that because if they're (SHR) better than we are, we've got to figure out why and vice versa, and we'll shoot it out on the track there in the last lap or the last 10 laps,” said Penske.

After years of trailing the competition, the Fords have had an early season edge so far. There’s no guarantee that will continue, of course, but for now, the Ford teams are happy.

“You know how strong the Toyotas have been and the Chevys have been,” Penske said. “This gives us at least a chance to say we're on par with these guys.  Now with a couple of wins I'd have to say we might be an inch or two ahead.”