Richard Petty Motorsports revealed Tuesday at its shop in Mooresville, North Carolina, that Ford will be its manufacturer for the 2016 season and beyond in both the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and the NASCAR XFINITY Series.
Richard Petty Motorsports has been aligned with Ford since 2010. The team will also continue its relationship with Roush Yates Engines and its services agreement with Roush Fenway Racing.
"Our relationship with Ford Performance has a history, a present and now a future of winning races and competing for championships," Richard Petty, co-owner of Richard Petty Motorsports said in a release provided by the team. "As we took on additional internal responsibilities within our organization over the past 12 months, Dave Pericak and his team at Ford Performance have been with us supporting Richard Petty Motorsports each step of the way. And to know they will continue to be our partner is very important to our combined desire to make RPM a championship caliber organization."
Petty and Ford go back quite a ways to the 1969 season, when "The King" scored nine of his 10 wins that year driving a Ford en route to a runner-up finish for the championship.
"Richard Petty Motorsports has made steady progress since joining our program, and we're looking forward to seeing them take that next step to being a consistent Chase participant," Dave Pericak, director, Ford Performance said in a release. "We feel they have the people in place to achieve that goal, and we're going to do everything we can to provide them the resources to make that happen."
RPM is a two-car race team that includes Aric Almirola driving the No. 43 and Sam Hornish Jr. driving the No. 9. Neither driver qualified for the Chase in 2015, although Almirola advanced to the postseason last year after winning the summer race at Daytona.
Almirola ranks 18th in points after 29 Sprint Cup Series races this season and Hornish Jr. stands 27th.
RPM also fields an entry for Dakoda Armstrong in the XFINITY Series. The driver of the No. 43 Ford is 14th in the series standings.
Together, Ford and RPM have teamed up for three wins in the Sprint Cup Series and two wins in the XFINITY Series.