Kevin Harvick on Brad Keselowski: 'They're in a little bit of trouble'

After Brad Keselowski was carted off pit road following COTA due to a failure with his cooling suit, Kevin Harvick had some critical things to say about the No. 6 team.

It’s been a rough start to the year for Keselowski, who finished P15 at COTA — his best finish of the young season. On the Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast, Harvick suggested that handling the duties of being both a driver and a team owner has proven very difficult.

“I think that Brad’s put RFK Racing in a good position with making the organization better,” Harvick said. “Being a driver’s a full-time job and doing both is a big undertaking, but I think Brad has done a great job on the team side. I think that at some point I think that the consistency of winning for Brad has to be there like it was at Penske from the driver side. But right now we haven’t seen that.”

In the first half of the 2024 season, Brad Keselowski had eight top-10 finishes, including a win at Darlington. Since then, he’s had just four top-10 finishes.

The first half proved that Keselowski could get it done at a high level, though. Consistency has proven trickier.

“We saw flashes of that last year for a brief moment there in the middle of the year, and he did what he needed to do capitalizing on a mistake there from (Chris) Buescher and his circumstances, but it’s just not what we expect out of Brad,” Harvick said. “We expect Brad to win multiple races in a year.”

As for the physical attention needed after the race, Harvick seemed to not know of the cooling suit failure. Still, he put some of it on Brad Keselowski for not being in good enough shape. He noted:

“I think from the preparation and physical side of things, this car is tough,” Harvick said. “And being able to put yourself in shape and do all the things that you need to do to really concentrate and perform at a high level is a lot of work off the racetrack. I’m not sure what his issues were after the race, but it definitely seems like three races in they’re in a little bit of trouble.”

Harvick concluded with another critical take for Brad Keselowski and his team. It’s a question Keselowski and company need to answer.

“What is the strength of the 6 team, because it’s definitely not road racing?” Harvick said. “I don’t know that they’ve really found their way as to what their strength is. … It just seems like it’s something every week for the last half of last year and this year. It’ll be interesting to see if they can correct that, but it’s a big workload for Brad to do both.”