Haas Factory Team has made an announcement ahead of the Michigan race weekend. The Cup Series team has hired Cole Custer's crew chief for the 2025 season.
According to a press release, Aaron Kramer will take over the No. 41 team starting with the 2025 season. He will guide the group as Custer returns to full-time Cup Series competition and pursues his second career win at the top level of NASCAR.
Kramer will not immediately join Haas Factory Team. He currently works as the lead engineer on the No. 17 team at RFK Racing and will continue in this role as Chris Buescher pursues his first win of the season.
Once the 2024 season comes to a close, Kramer will move over to Haas Factory Team. The two teams have a technical alliance starting in 2025.
"Aaron's engineering pedigree and his history with RFK Racing are great assets for Haas Factory Team. We're proud to have him join our team," said Joe Custer, president of Haas Factory Team, in a statement. "NASCAR, and the Cup Series in particular, has become very engineering-driven.
"Limited track time and the nuances of the NextGen car have put a premium on simulation and data, and to really maximize all that information, you need people who can apply that information to the car and work closely with the driver to fine-tune the car. Aaron is that person, and we're confident he can build a team of like-minded people who will have our race team ready to go for 2025."
Kramer, 35, earned a mechanical engineering degree from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) in 2016, the same year he joined RFK racing. He worked as an electrical and data systems engineer before moving into the role of lead engineer on the No. 60 Xfinity Series team in 2018.
Kramer moved up to RFK Racing's Cup program in 2019. He was a secondary race engineer with the No. 6 team while Ryan Newman was in control of the entry. Kramer then moved to Buescher's team in 2021, ultimately becoming the lead race engineer of the team in 2023.
Now, Kramer will take over as crew chief for a Cup Series team for the first time in his career.
"This is a great opportunity and I'm very grateful for it," Kramer said in a statement. "I've been working toward the crew chief position since I was racing go-karts in high school. It's a proud moment to have it come with Haas Factory Team. Their alliance with RFK makes the learning curve a little less steep because I'm very familiar with the people and processes at RFK.
"Having Cole as the driver is a huge asset. He's highly motivated and dedicated to his craft. He puts in the time away from the track so that he's ready every time he climbs into the racecar. That's what you want as a crew chief. We're going to push each other and support each other to get the best results possible."