Tag: Stewart-Haas

Aric Almirola says Stewart-Haas Racing needs to know his 2024 plans within the next 30 to 60 days so plans can be made, if necessary, for the No. 10 Ford Mustang.

“They have to plan for the future way more than I do,” Almirola told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “I’m very capable of pivoting and changing and switching, but the race team, there are a lot of moving parts with the race team. So, the race team certainly needs to have an idea of what’s going on and the sooner, the better.

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“Those are active discussions and there are a lot of moving parts. There are a lot of variables, and it’s complicated. It’s not very easy.”

Almirola was set to retire from full-time NASCAR Cup Series competition after the 2022 season. However, interest from the team and sponsors for Almirola to keep racing and the Almirola family finding a more balanced personal life led to a change in plans.

A year later, Almirola has “no idea” what he’s going to do next. The three-time Cup Series winner said he doesn’t have a clear direction of which way he’ll decide.

Stewart-Haas Racing has already had to fill one seat in its camp for next season. Josh Berry will replace Kevin Harvick in the No. 4 Ford Mustang.

Almirola has driven for Stewart-Haas since 2018, earning two of his three victories with the organization. Last year was the first season Almirola failed to make the postseason with the No. 10 team.

Almirola’s full-time Cup Series career began in 2012.

When asked further about his timeline Saturday at Richmond Raceway, Almirola didn’t have much to add. He reiterated that it is a complicated process and there is more to the story than what the public sees.

“(The conversations have been) going on that’s not something new,” Almirola said. “We just continue to work through that, but right now, my focus is on winning at Richmond.

“We had such a great race car at Loudon, and we want to come back here and complete it. We want to execute and capitalize on a great short-track program that we have. We know we’re still looking for speed at the downforce-type racetracks, but Daytona is a great opportunity for us. But we don’t want to wait that long. So, got a lot of focus here on Richmond.”

Aric Almirola thought he was on the verge of something great with Stewart-Haas Racing, given how the first year driving the No. 10 Ford Mustang went.

Almirola had a career year in 2018, finishing fifth in the championship standings. It included a trip to victory lane in the fall race at Talladega Superspeedway, leading over 100 laps in a single season for the first time, a new mark in the average finish category and at the time, a career-high number of top five and top-10 finishes.

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But instead of it being more of the same, Almirola and his team have struggled. Something Almirola looks at, in his sixth year driving for Tony Stewart and Gene Haas, with a bit of surprise.

“No, certainly not what I expected,” Almirola said of his tenure with Stewart-Haas. “I expected more years like the first year, to be honest. I showed up here in 2018, and we not only won a race, but I was in contention to win probably five or six races throughout that year and consistently ran in the top 10, top five.

“(It) was a team that on any given weekend we showed up to a racetrack (and) felt like we could win, and that has certainly not been the case the last couple of years. It’s disappointing, for sure, but a lot of this is part of the sport, too. Our sport is very cyclical.”

There has been only one trip to victory lane since 2018 and although Almirola earned berths in the playoffs in 2019, 2020, and 2021, he hasn’t finished better than 14th in the standings, and he failed to make the playoff last season.

“We had a great year in 2018, not only for me personally but organizationally with winning a lot of races,” he said. “Then we went into 2019, and we weren’t quite as good as 2018 as an organization; 2020, we were still just OK, but we weren’t as dominant and as good as we had been in the past years. So, I feel like, for me, I totally anticipated coming over here and having success and building on that success to having an opportunity to go and be a champion.

“That hasn’t come to fruition, and I’m certainly disappointed about it, but, at the end of the day that doesn’t define me as a human being. As a race car driver, I always want more and want to be a champion, want to win multiple races in a year, and I have all of those lofty goals, but sometimes things don’t always go the way you want them to.”

Almirola has one top-10 finish going into Sonoma Raceway (Sunday, 3:30 p.m. ET, FOX) before the season’s first and only off weekend. He is 25th in the championship standings with three DNFs and 44 laps led.

It is another year of fighting for Almirola and his team. A challenge he embraces, just like trying to be a consistent winner and Cup Series champion.

“Life is not easy; everybody has good days and bad days,” Almirola said. “Everybody has good years and bad years. There are seasons to life. There are seasons to a career and so, for me, it doesn’t water down the fact that I’m still racing at the highest level of stock car auto racing, something that I dreamed about as a kid.

“I’m getting to live out my childhood dream driving a NASCAR Cup Series car against 39 of the other best race car drivers in the world that drive stock cars, so I am very appreciative and very grateful of what I get to do.

“Do I want more wins and championships and all those things? Absolutely. I’m a competitive person, but at the end of the day, you sit there, and you look at Richard Petty, who is the King of our sport. I’ve gotten the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Richard, and he doesn’t ever sit down at Thanksgiving with all 200 of his trophies. He sits down at Thanksgiving with his family, and he sits down to share a meal with people he cares about.

“All the time I’ve ever gotten to spend with him and talk about things outside of racing and talking about life, he’s been a huge impact on me just being able to recognize and realize that you don’t always have to chase the success because it doesn’t really define who you are once you stop driving a race car.

“What defines who you are is how you treat other people and how you are with the people you love, so, yeah, I think as a competitive person, I want to win everything, but the reality is that’s not the case.”