Brad Keselowski said Tuesday on Fox Sports 1’s Race Hub that he supports NASCAR’s decision to suspend Matt Kenseth for intentionally wrecking Joey Logano.
But Keselowski said he would still have supported the sanctioning body’s move even if Logano weren’t his Team Penske teammate.
“I think it’s a pretty clear message you can’t intentionally wreck the leader when you’re six or seven (laps) or however many laps down and especially not in the Chase,” Keselowski said. “I thought that was a pretty clear message beforehand and I would have been more so surprised if there was not a penalty.
“It shouldn’t matter if it was me, your favorite driver, if it was Dale Jr. There always has to be limits and it shouldn’t matter who’s driving the cars, if you like the guy or don’t like the guy. We have to have some rules to keep the racing intact.”
Keselowski also said there are ways to even scores on the race track rather than intentionally exacting payback through wrecking a fellow driver.
“I think there’s always a way for a driver to settle a score,” Keselowski said. “That way can be a lot of different things. You can race him real hard, not cut him any slack on pit road, there’s a lot of other ways to exact revenge without intentionally wrecking someone in the car. Personally, I feel that’s the message NASCAR is trying to get across here and that this is beyond what they consider payback.
“NASCAR racing was built on hard side-by-side racing for the win. By allowing payback to go on like this, basically what you’re saying is that what Joey did at Kansas was wrong and that racing hard for the win was wrong. And if you do that, you’re going to allow someone else to come out and intentionally wreck you later in the year or whenever, that keeps you from racing hard and in the long term hurts the sport and I think NASCAR sees that part.”
NASCAR On Fox analyst Jeff Hammond also chimed in on the controversy.
“All I want to ask is where is the rule that says you can’t do this,” Hammond said. “If you go back and look at past history, the way things have evolved, there’s not been a rule in place that would tell Brad Keselowski and his crew chief you can’t do this because you’re going to get this. Is there? That’s my biggest problem with this.“
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