Ryan Preece will return for a second season in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 41 in the NASCAR Cup Series next season.
It was a long-held belief that Preece would not lose his ride, but with the constant rearranging of the ‘Silly Season’ deck chairs over the past several months, it wasn’t a verifiable claim until the driver made it himself Tuesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
“I’m going to be in the SHR No. 41 next year,” Ryan Preece said. “Definitely looking forward to it. We’ve made a lot of gains. Last weekend was pretty frustrating because we drove our way into the top-five and was on the wrong end of one of the last restarts and had nothing to show for where we were the last 10 laps.
“Moving forward, I like the direction and the things we’ve been working on and it makes me optimistic going into Talladega (this weekend) because we have such fast superspeedway cars but also Las Vegas. Our mile and a half stuff has never been my strong suit but the things we’ve worked on, I’m feeling eager and excited to get to Las Vegas and Martinsville and Phoenix are two of my favorite tracks so we have some good ones coming up.”
Preece has been something of a journeyman over his NASCAR career the past seven seasons with stints at JTG Daugherty and Stewart-Haas following part-time drivers for several Xfinity Series teams while working to establish himself as a full-timer.
Stewart-Haas has struggled to acclimate to the NextGen era, producing only three wins over the past two seasons, and two of them belong to the retiring Kevin Harvick. Chase Briscoe won early last season at Phoenix.
With that in mind, Preece has earned a pass in racing circles for the performance of the team as the entire organization has needed to make gains, something that has started to manifest over the past several weeks.
Josh Berry will replace Harvick with Preece and Briscoe signed next season as well. The only remaining puzzle piece will be what happens to the No. 10 team with Aric Almirola yet to announce whether or not he will retire at the end of the season.