What now for Brad Keselowski and RFK Racing with impending split?

To hear RFK Racing president Chip Bowers articulate it, Brad Keselowski simply wanted to keep racing more than he wanted to focus on his ownership duties with a focus on competition matters, leading to the surprise split announced this week.

Both Bowers and Keselowski met with the media on Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway but the 2012 Cup Series champion largely offered several no comments while the former Florida Marlins president was more expressive.

“One of the things that I heard very early in the process from Brad is that he really has an interest in being a race car driver for the foreseeable future,” Bowers said. “I think a five-year-plus span is what he’s got his eyes on and I applaud that. …

“As we started this journey five years ago, we had an idea of Brad taking on a very ambitious role — he’s going to be race car driver, he’s going to be head of competition, he’s going to be minority owner, he’s a businessman and has interest outside of our organization. He’s a father. That is an incredible amount of things to balance.”

Bowers said that the organization wanted Keselowski to focus more on his competition director duties beyond the next three years and become their version of Chris Gabehart and Chad Knaus.

“And so for us, we wanted that to be a natural transition over the next two-to-three years for Brad and I think he wants to continue to drive much longer than that and that’s fine,” Bowers said. “We applaud that. Like I said, we want to give Brad … because we have such immense respect and appreciation for Brad … every opportunity to do all the things he wants to do in his career.

“But that’s what makes it so hard. This is a business and we just weren’t aligned with that and that happens sometimes. We just wanted to make the competition side more of a focus.”

Keselowski was pretty reserved in his statements but explained that his five-year driver contract expires at the end of this season and that it is separate from his owner contract.

Bowers said he was ultimately surprised that the organization and Keselowski couldn’t figure out a compromise.

“And if he is to go drive for another organization that is not a Ford racing team, you might imagine there’s a lot of concerns around that,” Bowers said. “And so there’s a concern about sharing of intellectual property and all the things. You simply just can’t have that dynamic.

“So, one key decision unfortunately creates a domino effect for all the other ones and that’s what ultimately led us to where we are.”

So what is Brad Keselowski looking to drive?

“I’m open to everything,” Keselowski said. “I’m just going to look for the best opportunity that comes at me and then make a decision from there.”

 That could even mean adding a Truck Series championship to his Cup and O’Reilly Series championships.

“Absolutely,” Keselowski said. “I’m not ready to divulge any of that yet, but that’s something I’m absolutely interested in. That’s not my only interest, so we’ll see what plays out.”

When Motorsport.com asked him if finding some other way to still end up driving the No. 6 car next season, Keselowski gave another similarly cryptic answer.

“I can’t comment on that at this time,” Keselowski said.

Watch: Brad Keselowski evaluating next opportunities for 2027

Chris Buescher, who has praised Keselowski for the culture change at RFK Racing, also said he felt like his boss wouldn’t have left unless he had a plan.

“I like Chris,” Keselowski said. “He’s a good guy despite my Consumer Cellular commercial. I like Chris.”

But again, any questions about the ownership dynamic and if Keselowski got what he was initially promised, did not get answered.

“Again, I’m not gonna get into all things RFK – not at this time,” Keselowski.

He also said that despite weeklong rumors to the contrary, he doesn’t have anything already done and is waiting to see what all of his options are.

“No, I don’t have anything signed for next year,” Keselowski said. “Like I said, I’m just going to evaluate everything and see which one makes the most sense.”

And whatever Keselowski decides to do, Bowers said the team is not going to hold the driver of the No. 6 and their de facto competition director and co-owner to a non-compete clause.

“We’re not going to hold Brad captive,” Bowers said. “We want, like I said before, this is not acrimonious. If Brad would like to go race somewhere else, if Brad would like to be an owner somewhere else, if Brad would like to lead competition somewhere else, he’s more than happy to do so.

“There’s some things obviously we have to work out that we’ll do privately as it relates to his equity, and that may take a little bit of time for all the reasons I talked about, just so there’s no conflicts with our OEM or anything like that.

“But look, Brad is an above board professional, and so we have no concerns that he’s going to take information from us or anything like that. We want Brad to be highly successful, right? So, whatever it is he wants to do, we want him to be able to pursue it.”

Ultimately, Keselowski said he’s had some moments of anger, even as Bowers says there was no animosity between Fenway Sports Group and Keselowski.

“I was really pleasantly surprised by the fan and media reaction,” Keselowski said. “I didn’t expect that, particularly with everything going on related to the Chase and so forth. Probably my biggest emotion just being at the racetrack is humbled to have that level of support.

“That doesn’t mean that’s the only emotion through the whole process. There have probably been a few moments of anger over the last few weeks as the realities of this have become clearer, but I’m in a good spot now.”

What next for RFK?

Brad Keselowski and Jack Roush, RFK Racing

Photo by: Jeffrey Vest / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

What is now called RFK Racing now needs a new driver for the No. 6 car, a competition director and it still is in the market for a third charter.

“We want to make sure that that person’s the right strategic fit, the right cultural fit, someone who has a really good understanding of what it’s going to take to be great, and that’s going to be where we are hyper-focused,” Bowers said of the next competition director. “That’ll be the next step in our process as I run a parallel path to think about who our third driver’s going to be, which is going to take some time.

“We are already out in the market. We’ve hired a third-party search firm and CAA Sports to assist us with that process and we’re excited about the number of people that we know are going to be interested in this role.”

Bowers said he has the money for a third charter and just needs to find a seller.

Preece, Buescher respond

Buescher is one of the loudest advocates for Keselowski and what he’s brought to Roush-Fenway but he believes in the eventual response.

“Brad has been great and has been a huge part of that, but we’ve got a lot of really sharp people and really talented people,” Buescher said. “We have some roles to fill and we’ll work hard and try to make the best decisions there.

“If we can get that right, then we’ll be able to keep up and keep pushing forward. We’ve kind of established a great foundation and we owe so much of that to Brad and that will help set us going forward on a strong path.” 

Preece sees opportunity.

“For me, I think it’s an opportunity for Chris and myself,” Preece said. “Chris has been there for a long time and I feel like we have a lot to say and hopefully it’s going to help the direction, but Brad has been a great teammate, a great part of their ownership group in rebuilding, but the house needs to keep being built, so we’re going to keep trying to do everything right and still have success.” 

Both drivers said Keselowski and Bowers called a company meeting this week, and even though they both knew enough to have seen this coming, they appreciated the professionalism.

“I wasn’t completely in the dark, but it’s not like I knew something was coming down the line,” Buescher said. “We’ve had some conversations, not to the pinpoint knowledge part of it, but from both sides — from Brad and right before letting me know, and from Chip’s side as well.”

Preece said there is still questions to be answered but again pointed to the opportunity ahead of them.

“What I’ll say is this is an opportunity to keep building the house,” Preece said. “It’s not going to get torn down. I see a lot of glass half empty things and I’m a glass half full guy. I think we have a really strong foundation at RFK and right now I’m a racer and it’s taken me too damn long to win races, and I feel like we want to keep going that way.”

Denny Hamlin reaction

In some ways, Denny Hamlin can relate to what Keselowski does as a driver that is also an owner of a team. 

But he also recognizes how RFK is built different and that Keselowski had way more responsibilities than even Hamlin has splitting time between Joe Gibbs Racing and the 23XI Racing team he co-owns with Michael Jordan.

“I would find it really, really hard to do what apparently Brad’s titles were,” Hamlin said. “I just went about it differently in the sense of that I have a grand vision, and then I hired the people to then, you play that out. You make that happen. I’ll put in the big puzzle pieces. You guys fill in all the little ones, and we’re going to create the picture that we want here. I couldn’t imagine having to do my job as a driver, even if I’m even with that team, and then doing Dave Rogers’ (Sr. Director, Competition, 23XI Racing) job also, there is absolutely no way that I’d be able to do it entirely too much work, but we’re not privy to, like, what structure was around them, right?

“Was he in the building 10 hours a day, like those guys or did he was he doing it to where it was that he had the people in place? I don’t know, it just seems like that would be a really tough task to be the comp director and the driver, because the two are very different.

“But again, I don’t know if it was just visions and things like that, he was having other people play out. But it’s certainly challenging. Again, I just couldn’t imagine taking on both, and I’ve got a pretty high tolerance for workloads. So, it’ll be something that certainly is going to be a pretty big change over there. Obviously, there was a jump in performance, when he went over there, and whether that be through – could that be manufacturer stuff? Could that be technical stuff? Very wide range of reasons why teams run better after certain times or not, but, you know, the proof will be in what happens years down the road, right? And so, it certainly is going to be a big reset for the whole Roush Fenway group.”

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– The Motorsport.com Team

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