NASCAR Cup Series

Red Bull plans don't include Speed in 2011

Published Oct. 22, 2010 8:10 p.m. ET

foxsports

Scott Speed looks set to be out of a job in 2011.

Red Bull Racing Team general manager Jay Frye left some wiggle room in his statements Friday, but with Kasey Kahne coming on board until he joins Hendrick Motorsports in 2012 and Brian Vickers signaling that he should be ready to return next season after a blood-clot issue took him out of the car earlier this year, all signs point to Speed being the odd man out at the team next season.

"Our plan is to have two cars," Frye said Friday at Martinsville. "Obviously in that situation, we have too many drivers.

“We’ve said this for some time now that there’s performance clauses within (Speed's) contract and again, we don’t really get into contract discussions. Our plan right now is to have two cars. We’re monitoring Brian's health and it appears to be on course and doing great. Again, we’re also monitoring Scott and his performance, where he’s at and what’s going to happen next. We’re going to end up having, at this point, two cars and possibly three drivers. At that point, decisions will have to be made. It’s not necessarily the case that decisions have been made yet.”

In his second full season of Sprint Cup Series competition, Speed has two top-10 finishes in 31 starts and is currently 28th in the standings.

Prior to coming to NASCAR in a part-time basis in 2008, Speed raced for Red Bull's Formula One team from the start of the 2006 season until 10 races into the 2007 campaign, when he was relieved of his driving duties at Scuderia Toro Rosso.