Brad Keselowski will not be fined for his profanity-laced tirade following Saturday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway where, among other things, he said his team was being “targeted.”
Brad Keselowski won’t be fined for critical comments he made at Texas
Brad Keselowski will not be fined for his comments criticizing the sanctioning body, said NASCAR CEO Brian France in an interview Monday.
Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
This news came directly from NASCAR CEO Brian France, who in a television appearance Monday on the Fox Business Network, said Keselowski was merely expressing his opinion and nothing he stated warranted a fine.
“We’re not (fining him),” France said to host Dagen McDowell.“That’s the beauty of NASCAR; we do allow the drivers to express themselves in that way, even if they say things that we would disagree with.”
France then added that he “would certainly disagree with everything that (Keselowski) said.”
Keselowski, the defending Sprint Cup Series champion, was upset that during pre-race inspection both Penske Racing entries had the rear-end housing confiscated from its cars and that NASCAR considered the parts and pieces illegal.
The incident at Texas followed another issue in technical inspection the week before at Martinsville along with a controversial penalty assessed to Keselowski during that race.
At the time of his remarks it seemed like a given that Keselowski would face some sort of penalty from NASCAR considering the sanctioning body’s history of reprimanding drivers who have openly questioned NASCAR’s rulings.
In March, Denny Hamlin was fined $25,000 after saying the new, highly touted Gen-6 car was not producing as good of racing as its predecessor.
By everyone’s estimation but NASCAR’s, Hamlin’s observation was fairly innocent and at the time factually correct with statistics showing a drop in the number of lead changes and green flag passes.
No matter, NASCAR said Hamlin had used “disparaging remarks” and slapped him with a fine.
When asked Monday why Hamlin had been punished and Keselowski was not, France noted the cases were different. Hamlin criticized the on-track product while Keselowski did not.
“The line we draw is you can’t criticize the racing product,” France said. “You can criticize our decisions. You can criticize everything else -- which is more than any other sport might allow. But just don’t go talking about our racing product (and how it) isn’t the best in the world, because it is.”
During the interview France did call Keselowski a “great champion” and that in his opinion, he was frustrated with what had happened during inspection and was merely venting.
“I love the way he races,” France said. “He’s been very supportive of things we’ve wanted him to do. I really think he had a moment where he was blowing off some steam.
“He was probably highly frustrated at the weekend and how it went, and I understand that.”
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