Brad Keselowski is currently in his fifth season as the co-owner and driver of RFK Racing. When he took over the reins in 2022, he was dispatched with a single mission: To take the organization back to the top. He has been steady at work towards that goal. After the first five races of the 2026 season, he believes that they have everything but one piece needed to challenge for wins again.
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In Las Vegas last weekend, he was discussing RFK Racing’s strong performances with former crew chief Steve Letarte when he revealed this missing element. He said, “We are one of the two teams that have finished every lap through every race this year. We have all three cars in the playoffs, so that’s great. The one thing we are missing is race-winning speed.”
He is extremely satisfied with how consistent his team’s results are and with how his pit crews have been performing. If they could find a little bit of speed to go along with all that, Keselowski believes, they could be challenging for victories every week. RFK Racing cars are almost always very close to each other when a race ends. He clarified that this wasn’t by fluke.
In any team, there will be certain cars that are better than the rest. This could be due to various factors. But in RFK Racing, Keselowski makes sure that isn’t the case. He is particular about making all three cars identical in performance and speed. From there, the drivers do their best to live up to their teammates and make sure they finish at the top of the field.
How have RFK Racing drivers performed so far?
The one leading the show at the team is Chris Buescher. He stands ninth on the points table, powered by two top-10 finishes at Daytona and Las Vegas. Keselowski sits in 12th place on the points table. He finished fifth in the Daytona 500 and 10th at Vegas last Sunday. Ryan Preece, the team’s latest addition, meanwhile, finished ninth in Atlanta and sits 13th on the points table.
They have made a very strong statement with these performances. If the regular season were to end this instant, they would all be eligible to race for the championship under the Chase format. But it should be noted that they still have a lot of room to improve. Collectively, they have led 22 laps over the five races.
That’s a far cry from the 225 laps that Christopher Bell has led or the 152 that Denny Hamlin has led till now. What they don’t have is outright pace, and Keselowski has admitted that. Hopefully, they will find that missing element soon.
