NASCAR: Five reasons Danica Patrick leaving Stewart-Haas Racing is the right decision

Lack of enjoyment

In order to put your life on the line and drive at over 200 miles per hour on a weekly basis, you need to have a lot of enjoyment and passion for what you do. Danica Patrick just doesn’t have that passion anymore, and she has said so herself.

"“As long as it’s fun – and it hasn’t been super fun lately. But every year I start the year, I always have hope that it’s going to be the year that things are going to click. I understand my career hasn’t progressed. Maybe it’s regressed? Why is that? Am I worse driver than I was a couple of years ago? Probably not. I don’t think anybody gets worse. So it’s really a matter of all the factors around you.”"

She’s going out there every week risking her life doing something she hasn’t even been enjoying. She also doesn’t need to be doing it to make a living, as she is already a multi-millionaire from racing and owns her own clothing line. And honestly, as touched on in the first slide, she really hasn’t even been a great driver.

So is it really worth it without the reward exceeding or even coming close to the risk Patrick recently added to the statement surrounding her lack of enjoyment of the sport.

"“I want to continue racing if I have an opportunity to do well. I have no interest, as I’ve said for years now, to run 25th. It’s not fun. So if I don’t feel like I can have the opportunity to move on from there and have a better opportunity, then honestly I don’t care.”"

Seeing as how she has never finished higher than 24th place in the championship standings in her four previous full-time seasons in the sport, running 25th is almost like a best-case scenario for her, which is something that no driver wants to have to deal with, especially a driver like her, who is literally known nothing else in her Cup Series career.