Improving on 2015 begins at the restart for Brad Keselowski’s No. 2 Team Penske squad.
It’s not like 2015 was too far off of Keselowski’s 2012 championship form. The No. 2 driver made the Round of 8 in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and finished the year in seventh place.
But we know in NASCAR, off by just a fraction of an inch can make enormous differences. In terms of wins, Keselowski was off by that fraction: He had only one win in 2015 after compiling six in 2014.
Last season it was the No. 22 Penske car and Joey Logano which racked up six wins — though both drivers piled up the laps led with 1,431 for Logano and 1,185 for Keselowski.
One key difference for the No. 2, crew chief Paul Wolfe said, was late-race restarts.
“Ultimately, I feel like we ended last season much stronger than we were in ’14 and you can’t always judge a team by the amount of wins,” Wolfe said during last week’s Charlotte Media Tour. “I try to look at the bigger picture of the performance and where it was at. That being said, we need to be able to execute a little better. We didn’t execute like we needed to. I think a lot of that comes down to communication between Brad and I and understanding what we can do to make our car better on the late-race restarts.”
Keselowski dominated a few races at the end of the 2015 season, with top-four finishes at Talladega, Texas and Homestead, showing the wins are just waiting to resurface. And the low-downforce rules package appears to play into his strengths: He had a sixth-place finish at Kentucky and a runner-up finish at Darlington, both of which featured a lower downforce package in 2015.
“I like the new car; like the new direction in many ways. I like where we’re headed as a manufacturer,” Keselowski said during the media tour.
Driver and crew chief are on the same page in terms of the rules package.
“I’m optimistic about the rules change, the aero package and feeling like we’ve done a good job over the last couple of years being a team that can really adapt well,” Wolfe said. “We’re looking forward to the challenge, for sure.”
Both Keselowski and Logano are excited about their equipment and adapting quickly to the rules changes.
“I think Team Penske’s done a great job, obviously with working with the new rules and coming out of the gate strong,” Logano said. “I think last year we saw how important that is. … You click off a couple of wins and lock yourself into the Chase early, and that really pays dividends once the Chase comes around.”
Logano believes Team Penske will stack up well against Toyota’s powerhouse teams in 2016, particularly as fellow Ford team Roush Fenway Racing makes moves to improve.
“I think we’re going to be in good shape,” Logano said. “You look at our new body, I think the new body is going to be good for us. … I feel comfortable with the way Roush Yates has improved our motors in the offseason. We’re working internally as just the 22 team, but we have to work on a larger scale with the Penske team and even larger scale with the manufacturer.”
As for competition between inside the Penske team, Keselowski says he and Logano push each other to be better, battling for wins as they share information.
“Certainly there’s a little bit of brotherhood there, but all in a good way,” Keselowski said. “We’re great teammates. We work together really well.”
Chasing a championship is never easy, though.
“There’s always tension, right?” Keselowski asked. “We’re here to win and anything less is unacceptable. I think there’s a little bit of a blessing that we won a championship so early because that instills a lot of confidence that anything is possible.”
