Former Cup champion Brad Keselowski has been offered a ride with Roush Fenway Racing in a deal that would include part ownership, motorsport.com reported Tuesday.
Keselowski’s contract with Team Penske expires after this season.
The report, citing multiple unnamed sources, stated that the team would be renamed RFK (Roush-Fenway-Keselowski) Racing. The report also states that Keselowski would drive the No. 6 car.
Ryan Newman drives the No. 6 car this season. He is the last year of his contract with Roush Fenway Racing. The motorsport.com report stated that it is unclear if Newman would move to a third car with the team or leave the organization.
Should the team have a third car, it would need a charter to be guaranteed a starting spot for each race and receive the financial benefits charter teams receive each race over non-chartered teams.
If the deal takes place, Keselowski would be the second high-profile driver to move into an ownership role in Cup. Denny Hamlin partnered with NBA icon Michael Jordan to form 23XI Racing, which is in its first season this year.
The 37-year-old Keselowski won the 2012 Cup championship. He has 35 career Cup wins, including earlier this season at Talladega Superspeedway.
Car owner Roger Penske said in March that “I think we’re moving in the right direction” to sign Keselowski to an extension. Penske said then that “I guess it’s just a matter of us sitting down and putting it together, but with everybody not being able to move around, you don’t do that over the phone and you don’t do it by Zoom, so we want to do that face-to-face.”
Keselowski ran three Xfinity races for Penske in 2009 and joined the organization in 2010. He has made 409 career Cup starts for Team Penske heading into Sunday’s inaugural series race at Circuit of the Americas (2:30 p.m. ET on FS1).
Keselowski delivered Team Penske’s 500th all-time win when he took the checkered flag in Sept. 2018 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Keselowski passed Mark Donohue in February 2019 at Atlanta Motor Speedway to become the all-time win leader at Team Penske.
“All wins are special,” Keselowski said that day. “There’s no wins that don’t mean something, but some just mean more. And this one means more for more reasons, whether it be the win record for Team Penske; that’s certainly very special to me.
“When you look at the list of drivers, it’s a pretty big list, and it’s big not just with the amount of drivers but big with the superstar power I guess you’d call it. And just to be on that list as a winner means a lot, but to be on top of it means even more.”
Keselowski has 67 wins (Cup and Xfinity) for Team Penske.
Off the track, Keselowski owns Keselowski Advanced Manufacturing, a state-of-the-art 3-D printing company in the facility that used to house his Camping World Truck Series team. Keselowski’s business is aimed at aerospace, defense, medical and automotive fields.
Team Penske had no comment on the report. NBC Sports also has reached out to Roush Fenway Racing for comment.
