Richard Petty Motorsports will continue its partnership with Ford Performance in 2016.
Petty and Ford, which have been partners stretching all the way back to 1969 and most recently since 2010, will continue to field cars in NASCAR’s top series next year.
The racing team currently fields two full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series entries with Sam Hornish Jr. and Aric Almirola. It also fields a single full-time entry in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with Dakoda Armstrong behind the wheel.
“Our relationship with Ford Performance has a history, a present and now a future of winning races and competing for championships,” said Richard Petty in a release. “As we took on additional internal responsibilities within our organization over the past 12 months, Dave Pericak and his team at Ford Performance have been with us supporting Richard Petty Motorsports each step of the way. And to know they will continue to be our partner is very important to our combined desire to make RPM a championship caliber organization.”
The racing team has made many improvements over the last couple of seasons, making the Chase last season after Almirola won at Daytona in July 2014. However, RPM has had a bit of a struggle of a 2015 season; both Almirola and Hornish have driven to only three top-five and seven top-10 finishes combined, neither making the Chase.
Almirola will return to the team in 2016. The statuses of Hornish and Armstrong are currently unknown.