Roush Fenway Racing still struggling, searching for solutions

Roush Fenway Racing officials spoke confidently prior to the season that it was ready to rebound from an underwhelming 2014 season. The team had undergone a restructuring and committed itself heavily to computer simulations designed to increase its competitiveness.

But the numerous personnel changes haven’t taken effect, while the computational fluid dynamic program the team was relying on to help its cars aerodynamically wasn’t properly configured. Consequently, Roush’s performance has regressed, not improved.

So pronounced are Roush’s struggles that it’s in danger of not placing a driver in the Chase for the Sprint Cup for the first in the organization’s history. Greg Biffle -- whose winless streak hits two years Sunday -- is 18th in the series standings. Ricky Stenhouse is 27th, Trevor Bayne is 28th and with four regular season races remaining, each would need a win to qualify.

“We have been Cup racing now for 28 years and had times when we had the hot hand and the combination that everyone else wished they understood or could have and there have been times when we lacked that,” Jack Roush said Friday at Michigan International Speedway. “We are on a cycle now that is on its way back up.

“Greg has had two top-five finishes this year and those are certainly races he could have won and there have been many other races that we have had streaks of brilliance throughout the race where a flat tire or something else that has happened to our disadvantage that has taken us out. All of my (teams) have got potential.”

Biffle is the veteran of the team, having been in the Cup since 2002, whereas Stenhouse and Bayne are in their third and first seasons, respectively. But even Biffle’s years of experience that have produced 19 wins haven’t been able to thwart the current tailspin -- both of his top-five finishes this season came in fuel-mileage races.

“We have four races and have to win one of them to get in the Chase,” Biffle said. “We have been very fortunate to make the Chase six of the last seven years. We feel the pressure, trust me.”

The issue hampering the Roush cars remains the same. Its engines (which also power Team Penske’s Fords) remain competitive with Penske drivers Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski combining for three victories this season and 11 in 2014. But the engineering side is the area of weakness, with Roush continually slogging behind.

With Michigan being the second of two tracks that’s utilizing a high-drag aerodynamic package, the company expects to show more speed than last month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where Biffle finished a team-best 19th.

“It is an imperfect science, CFD is,” Roush said. “We applied what we thought was the important things to this package and this is the second time we have run this aero package. We miscalculated how loose it was going to be in traffic at Indy.

“Guys have concentrated hard on the lessons learned at Indy, as all the teams are I am sure getting ready for here. The other aspect of our simulation past CFD is the Formula 1 based system that we have just taken for the first time this year with Ford. It is coming into its own right. The guys are getting confidence in it. It is certainly online and doing a nice job.”