Cole Custer Earns First Top-10 for Haas Factory Team in Mexico City

For 2023 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Cole Custer, a return to the NASCAR Cup Series with the newly formed Haas Factory Team has been a struggle, to say the least, as the No. 41 Ford Mustang Dark Horse team looks to develop themselves from the ashes of the now defunct Stewart-Haas Racing.

It hasn’t been an easy task in any way, shape or form, especially considering the highly competitive nature of the NASCAR Cup Series in 2025. However, Sunday’s Viva Mexico 250 has pumped some life into the Ladera Ranch, California-native’s season.

For the first time in about three years, Custer finds himself inside the top 10 in a NASCAR Cup Series event, collecting an eighth-place finish in Sunday’s event at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, Mexico.

It’s a rewarding triumph for an organization that is working to establish itself as a fixture of the NASCAR Cup Series.

“Yeah, it was huge. Everyone has been working so hard; there has just been so much to go through this year and so much to sort out, and these guys have just worked their tails off,” Custer said after the race. “Hopefully, once we get past the halfway point of the year, we can start clicking off some finishes and moving in the right direction. We just have to build a notebook. There are a lot of places we haven’t been together as a team, so we just got to work through it, and this weekend having practice helped.”

The best part about Sunday’s performance at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, is that it wasn’t a fluke, or the result of a lucky strategy play. The No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang had substantial pace throughout the entire afternoon.

Custer started Sunday’s event from outside of the top-25, but when an early-race rain showed hit the Mexico City-area and forced everybody onto wet-weather tires, the former NASCAR Cup Series race-winner was able to maneuver his way through the pack into a great position by the time the field went back to slicks.

Not only that, but first-year crew chief Aaron Kramer seemed to play a perfect strategy, which launched Custer up the running order at multiple different points throughout the event, putting him as high as fourth at one point in the event.

Through it all, the 27-year-old driver was able to hold his position inside the top-10, and although the HaasTooling.com-sponsored Ford Mustang faded to eighth during the final green flag run of the event, collecting his first top-10 of the NASCAR Cup Series campaign.

“We gained a lot of spots in the rain and then Aaron [Kramer], our crew chief, had a really good strategy,” Custer added. “We were able to keep our track position up there and we had a solid car and were able to execute good.”

Despite the solid finish in Mexico City, Custer remains 34th in NASCAR Cup Series point standings. However, Custer and Haas Factory Team are optimistic that the second-half of the season can contain more high moments like on Sunday – especially on short tracks and road courses.

“Coming to short tracks and coming to road courses those are going to be our strong suits as a small team, figuring things out, first year,” Custer said. “So, that’s where we need to make our ground really, is the shorter tracks where aero doesn’t matter as much, and I think we’re moving in the right direction on the intermediate tracks. But we have to work on it.”

Custer and Haas Factory Team will look to back up their strong run at Pocono Raceway next weekend, before the series goes to a superspeedway at Atlanta Motor Speedway and a pair of road courses in the Chicago Street Course and Sonoma Raceway.

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