With Chase Briscoe's surprise win at Darlington Raceway, Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing driver Chris Buescher narrowly missed out on the 2024 Cup Series Playoffs list. After the result, RFK's Competition Director Josh Sell supported the Texas-based racer on a podcast.
While the #17 team is out of the Playoffs this year, RFK Racing is preparing an aggressive strategy for the 2025 Cup Series season. Josh Sell spoke about the same on the SiriusXM NASCAR Radio podcast.
Here's a clip from the episode, shared by SiriusXM on its X page:
"It just didn't fall our way. So pretty disappointing. Tough to, you know, to come back to the shop and see all of our folks with that result. But we're focused on, you know, on getting 17 as many wins as we can between now and the end of the year and trying to build for next year," said Josh Sell, highlighting their strategy.
Ahead of the Cook Out Southern 500 race, Martin Truex Jr., Bubba Wallace, and Buescher were battling for the final two spots in the 2024 Playoffs. However, with Briscoe grabbing the victory out of nowhere, Wallace and Buescher were knocked out of contention for the Top 16.
Despite making good progress through the race at Darlington, the 2015 Xfinity Series champion could not score enough points to upset Truex's place in the list. The result was likely affected by a late-race multi-car wreck.
"I got fenced there and had to come fix it and put tires on and it got us off sequence. Didn’t even hit anything in the big wreck but just a roller coaster of a night," Buescher said during a post-race interview.
While the #17 team may be out of the Playoffs, the Brad Keselowski-driven #6 RFK Racing squad is placed eighth on the list and is considered one of the top contenders for the win.
A brief look at Chris Buescher's performance in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series regular season
Driving the Ford Mustang Dark Horse, Chris Buescher had a mixed start for the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series regular season. In the first five races, the RFK Racing driver finished in the Top 10s twice and the Top 5s once: 10th in Duel 1 at Daytona, ninth at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and second at Phoenix Raceway.
Highlights of Buescher's season were the races at Kansas Speedway, Sonoma Raceway, Bristol Motor Speedway, and Nashville Superspeedway, where he grabbed 51, 44, 38, and 37 points, respectively.
With 12 Top 10s, five Top 5s, and a total of 690 points, the Texas-based racer finished 17th in the regular season driver's table.