“We’ve had a lot of bad luck”: Josh Berry comes clean on Wood Brothers Racing’s ‘misfortunes’ after performance turnaround

Wood Brothers Racing car driver Josh Berry recently competed at the Cook Out 400 held at the Richmond Raceway on August 16. After the race, Berry spoke about his performance and the bad luck that they had during the past few races.

The 34-year-old drives the #21 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Wood Brothers Racing. During the race held on Saturday, Berry scored his first top 10 in the last 13 races with his eighth-place finish in the Cup Series race. He last finished in the top 10 in May during the AdventHealth 400 at the Kansas Speedway, where he secured the sixth spot in the race.

While talking to the press post-race, Josh Berry expressed his emotions and also spoke about the misfortunes that the team has had in the past few races. He said:(via NBC Sports)

“It was an up-and-down day. I thought we did a really good job managing everything, but we would have liked to have been a little bit better. We just struggled with the balance a little bit. It got better the second half for sure, but would have liked to have been a little bit better towards the end, but, all in all, a really good job for these 21 guys."

"This is what we know we’re capable of, but we’ve had some misfortune. Maybe we had a couple races where we weren’t as fast as we wanted, but we’ve had a lot of bad luck. Tonight is what we’re capable of. We know that going into the playoffs, so it’s nice to have a solid run and, like I said, we’ll go to Daytona and get ready for the playoffs after that.”

Berry had started the race in 17th place and made his way up the grid. With this top 10 finish, he also secured his spot for the playoffs in the Cup Series. So far this season Josh Berry has scored a win in Las Vegas along with 2 top-five and 4 top-10 finishes.

---

Josh Berry spoke about his shortcomings while honing his skills

The #21 Wood Brothers Racing driver had his breakthrough win earlier this season at Las Vegas. He highlighted how it was his fault for the missed opportunity to score good results, as his car showed promising speed and consistency.

Berry had scored 3 top ten finishes in the first 16 races held this season, which showed a sign of a learning curve in his first season with the Wood Brothers Racing team. During a pre-race conference, Berry said (via Cup Scene):

"The hardest thing to figure out is how to be fast, lead these races and get yourself in contention and we've done that a lot... It's frustrating to make mistakes, and those mistakes fall on me, but all we can do is just continue to put me in that position, and keep working on those things and getting better and the finishes will come." (11:37 onwards)

Josh Berry had announced his departure from the Stewart-Haas Racing team in 2024, and joined the Wood Brothers Racing team for the 2025 season.