{"id":14877,"date":"2014-09-13T13:38:49","date_gmt":"2014-09-13T17:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/?p=14877"},"modified":"2014-09-13T13:39:27","modified_gmt":"2014-09-13T17:39:27","slug":"marcos-ambrose-leaving-nascar-at-end-of-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/2014\/09\/13\/marcos-ambrose-leaving-nascar-at-end-of-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Marcos Ambrose leaving NASCAR at end of season"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"marcosambrose\"<\/p>\n

Marcos Ambrose will not return as driver of the No. 9 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford in 2015 according to the team.<\/p>\n

“I never thought I would achieve what I have at the Sprint Cup level,\u201d Ambrose said following Saturday’s first practice at Chicagoland Speedway. “I have survived here for years \u2026 I have had some wins, but not enough and I feel like I was up against it early on from my background. I came from a country that doesn’t have any asphalt oval racing at all so I feel like I have achieved a lot and am really satisfied.”<\/p>\n

Ambrose, a native of Launceston, Tasmania and former V8 Supercar champion said that if he ever thought his NASCAR career has plateaued then it was time for him to move on.<\/p>\n

“I’ve always said that if I felt like I had flattened \u2026 my learning curve or success, that I was only in the U.S. to win and if I wasn\u2019t able to contend like I want to, then I need to look at my situation and that has been the case.<\/p>\n

“It has been a tough couple of years on the race track for me and the personal situation is clear and I just think the timing is right to go home.”<\/p>\n

Ambrose won two races in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, both coming at the series road course races at Watkins Glen. In addition Ambrose also had 18 career top-five finishes, and 44-top-ten finishes. Ambrose won five races in the Nationwide Series, four coming at Watkins Glen and the other at Montreal.<\/p>\n

RPM said that the team is currently evaluating its options for 2015.<\/p>\n

“Marcos will always be a part of our extended racing family,\u201d team co-owner Richard Petty said. \u201cHe came over to the United States with his family and dedicated his time here to giving it the best he had each week.<\/p>\n

“I couldn\u2019t ask anything more from Marcos and his commitment on and off the track to our race team and our partners. Away from the track, he\u2019s a family person first. That\u2019s something I respect and we’ll miss Marcos, (his wife) Sonja and their children.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marcos Ambrose will not return as driver of the No. 9 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford in 2015 according to the team. “I never thought I would achieve what I have at the Sprint Cup level,\u201d Ambrose said following Saturday’s first practice at Chicagoland Speedway. “I have survived here for years \u2026 I have had some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[786,788],"tags":[135,789,396,708,536],"coauthors":[675],"class_list":["post-14877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar-topstory","category-news","tag-chicagoland","tag-front","tag-marcos-ambrose","tag-nascar","tag-richard-petty-motorsports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14877"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=14877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}