Jesse Love will be driving the number 21 Ford for Wood Brothers Racing in 2027, and it’s clear that this makes Love a long-term prospect for a drive at Ford’s premier team, Team Penske. 

While Love comes on board at Wood Brothers, the questions about the influence of various proprietors, especially Team Penske’s influence on Wood Brothers, have come into question. 

Addressing those, Jon Wood on SiriusXM said, “It’s not a secret that Roger Penske has some influence. We’d be lying if we said that he didn’t, but it's for the reason that you wouldn’t think. It’s not because he’s picking his driver.”

While Jon Wood revealed that Roger Penske has a lot of influence in the personnel change at Wood Brothers, he also said that there are multiple other factors involved in Wood Brothers replacing Josh Berry with Jesse Love. 

“Their sponsors and some of their partners account for upwards of two-thirds of our season. Of course, they’re going to have some say in what driver that we have. It’s a cooperative effort. Ford had a lot of influence as well. We would be, I guess, considered their factory Ford car. Motorcraft is obviously a division of Ford parts. So everybody has some say and a seat at the table.

Wood mentioned that getting everybody on board takes time, which often dictates how and when announcements and decisions are made by Wood Brothers. 

“It takes a long time to get everybody together and aligned from a schedule perspective and being able to make these decisions. Again the voice of Roger Penske has would be they help us with not only the technical side of our racing. Their partners fund a lot of our races, so we’ve got to keep everybody happy.”

How Wood Brothers fills a gap for Ford drivers

Ford is currently at a place where they barely have any upcoming talent, with the most recent NOAPS race being proof of Ford’s dire state in the series, where only Brad Perez drove a Ford car in San Diego. 

Ford has long been known for poaching young talent or potential future drivers, and very few drivers are currently part of Ford’s driver development programme. 

The Wood Brothers’ seat, which gets a lot of support from Team Penske, often acts as a ladder that helps Penske ascertain whether a driver would suit the premier Ford team. 

Jesse Love will be the latest in a long list of prospects that Ford would look at as a possible Penske driver for the long run. The best example of how Penske uses the Wood Brothers seat is the current highest-ranked Ford driver, Ryan Blaney. 

The 2023 Cup Series winner came up through the Ford ranks by driving in the Cup Series with Wood Brothers for 3 years from 2015 to 2017 before he made the transition to Penske in 2018, taking over the responsibilities of the 12 car. 

While Blaney has long served as a Ford driver, debuting for Team Penske way back in 2014, Jesse Love will look at Ryan Blaney’s career graph and imagine that’s the path for him going forward into his Cup Series career.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason