Danica Patrick is officially out at Stewart-Haas Racing in the 2018 season. Where, if anywhere, will she end up racing next year?
Danica Patrick, 35, announced last Tuesday that she will be departing Stewart-Haas Racing following the conclusion of the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series season.
Patrick has been driving for the team since the start of the 2013 season when she took the pole position for the Daytona 500 in the #10 Chevrolet, which is now the #10 Ford.
Her announcement sort of took the NASCAR world by surprise given the fact that it came right after Smithfield announced that they would be sponsoring Stewart-Haas Racing as opposed to Richard Petty Motorsports next season, and Patrick was in need of a sponsor if she wanted to continue driving the #10 car.
Everything seemed to be coming together for Patrick to continue driving that car next season, and then she announced that she would not be.
However, Patrick never officially announced that her racing career is over, so it will be interesting to see what happens and where she ends up, if anywhere, in the 2018 season. So where could Patrick end up next season? Here are five possible options for her.
Part-Time NASCAR Cup Series driver
Aside of Danica Patrick’s current ride in the #10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, all of the seats at all of the other top-tier teams are taken for the 2018 season in the NASCAR Cup Series are taken. This coupled with the fact that she won’t be returning to her current ride next season may make a return to the Cup Series for her only possible in the form of a part-time ride.
Patrick has stated that she doesn’t want to be in a situation where she is driving around in the back of the pack every race, so with no seats available with the top-tier teams in 2018, a part-time ride may be her only option if she wants to keep racing and if she wants to do so at least somewhat competitively.
"“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.”"
Despite her lack of success over the course of her Cup Series career with no wins, no top 5 finishes and just seven top 10 finishes in 181 starts, of which just one has come in the last 91 races, Patrick still has one of the sport’s biggest fanbases, so signing her part-time could be in the best interest of both the team that signs her and the sport itself.
Naturally, if that happens, the team that signed her will get a massive amount of publicity for doing so. As far as the sport itself goes, NASCAR would be able to retain a large percentage of the fans that make up her huge fanbase if she stays even part-time, which they need since Dale Earnhardt Jr., the 14-time defending Most Popular Driver Award winner, is retiring at the end of this season.
NASCAR Cup Series – #77 car
Furniture Row Racing recently announced that they were shutting down the operation of the #77 car currently driven by Erik Jones following the conclusion of the 2017 season. Jones is set to take over the driving duties of the #20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota currently driven by Matt Kenseth next season.
The purpose of Furniture Row Racing adding the #77 car this year to begin with was for Erik Jones to drive; in fact, the team had never been a full-time two-car operation in its 12-year existence prior to the start of the 2017 season. With Jones leaving at the end of the season, it is not a surprise to see the team going back to being a one-car operation with Martin Truex Jr. driving the #78 Toyota.
However, the #77 car won’t be out of the sport. Furniture Row Racing team owner Barney Visser stated that he sold the charter to another team, although he did not state to which team he sold it.
"“For now, we’re not going to try to run the thing. I just don’t want to run a place-holder in a charter kind of race car…I just don’t want to do that. That’s not in our DNA and I don’t want to put guys through that. If we put the car on the track, it’s going to be capable of going to the front. “It’s being sold right now. We think there (are) going to be a lot of charters on the market…it’s sold. It’s all contracted for right now.”"
NASCAR Cup Series – #77 car (continued)
Depending on which team bought the charter for the #77 Toyota, Danica Patrick could be an option to drive it in the 2018 season. She has stated that she doesn’t want to be in a situation where she is driving around in the back of the pack, so again, it may depend on which team bought it.
"“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.”"
As evidenced by the fact that Erik Jones in the #77 car has had a remarkable rookie season with 11 top 10 finishes, including four top 5 finishes and three podium finishes, the #77 car is indeed fast, so if the charter was bought by a good team, Patrick may be among the contenders to get the seat.
Sure, Patrick’s results throughout her Cup Series career have not been great by any stretch of the imagination. She has started 181 races and finished in the top 10 just seven times with no top 5 finishes, and just one of those seven top 10 finishes has taken place in the last 91 races. Those numbers don’t warrant being signed by a great team like Stewart-Haas Racing, the team she has driven for the past five years but will no longer be driving for in the 2018 season.
However, signing Patrick to drive the #77 car could be in the best interest of both the team who bought the charter and NASCAR itself. Naturally, if she does get signed, the team that signed her will get a massive amount of publicity for signing her. Given her lackluster statistics in the Cup Series, you could make the case that she has only been in the sport for as long as she has been because of the publicity she brings, so this would be a huge signing.
In turn, this would help NASCAR retain the many fans that would leave the sport if Patrick ended up leaving. With Dale Earnhardt Jr., the 14-time defending Most Popular Driver Award winner, already set to retire at the end of this season, NASCAR would greatly benefit by Patrick staying full-time, as she, too, has a huge fanbase that the sport should not want to lose.
Formula One
Danica Patrick currently drives for Stewart-Haas Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. Stewart-Haas Racing is co-owned by three-time Cup Series champion Tony Stewart and Gene Haas. Haas is the lone American team owner in Formula One. Could he possibly put her in one of his cars in the team’s third season and replace either Romain Grosjean or Kevin Magnussen?
A few years ago, Patrick said she had no desire to drive in Formula One.
"“I’m getting too old to change careers again and again, and I don’t really have a desire to do anything different than what I’m doing right now. I’m around my friends and family, and I’m racing internationally — and F1 I don’t think would really provide that.” “I lived in England for a few years and F1 was all I thought about doing, but to be honest when I came back home to the States, I thought this is where I want to be. You can never say never about anything — but at this point in time, I’m happy where I’m at.”"
However, the “where I’m at” she was referring to at the time was Stewart-Haas Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series, where she won’t be driving next season. So is Formula One a legitimate possibility for her in 2018?
Patrick is one of the few NASCAR Cup Series drivers with lots of experience driving on road and street courses. She has driven in 10 road course races in her five full-time seasons in the Cup Series, which is the maximum seeing as how only two races are contested on road courses each season, and she drove in 44 road and street course races in her IndyCar career.
So while she hasn’t performed well in her NASCAR Cup Series career, as she has no top 5 finishes in 181 races and just one top 10 finish in her last 91 races with a career-high finish in the championship standings of just 24th place, she is honestly probably a better option as far as a Formula One ride goes than many of the other Cup Series drivers, as Formula One races are held only on road and street courses.
IndyCar
While she has not been great whatsoever in NASCAR, Danica Patrick was actually decent when she drove in IndyCar from the 2005 through the 2011 seasons. In fact, despite the fact that she won just one race in seven IndyCar seasons, she was regularly one of the better drivers in the field.
In 181 career NASCAR Cup Series races, she has failed to win a single race, and she has never even finished in the top 5. She has finished in the top 10 seven times, with just one of those top 10 finishes coming in the last 91 races. She has just one career pole position start.
In four full seasons prior to the start of this season, her highest finish in the championship standings is 24th place, and she has finished as low as 28th. She currently sits in 28th in the standings, which would tie her career-worst finish if the standings stay as they are with nine races left this season.
However, in 116 career IndyCar races, she won a race at Japan and recorded seven podium finishes, 20 top 5 finishes and 63 top 10 finishes. She started on pole three times. In seven Indianapolis 500 starts, she finished the race six times, doing so in the top 10 each time with a career-high finish of 3rd place in 2009.
In seven full seasons in IndyCar, her lowest finish in the championship standings was 12th place, and that happened in her rookie season. That 12th place finish in the standings was the only season during which she finished lower than 10th in the standings. Her career-high finish was 5th in 2009.
With a good sample size of races in both racing series, it is extremely clear that she was a better IndyCar driver than she is a NASCAR driver. While she has said that she doesn’t want to leave NASCAR before, having now announced her departure from Stewart-Haas Racing, she may be doing just that, making an IndyCar return a possibility.
Retirement
It is very possible that the end of the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series season could mark the end of Danica Patrick’s racing career. It’s not like she absolutely needs to keep racing to make a living, as she is already a multi-millionaire and currently owns her own clothing line.
Plus, with her lack of good results over the course of her career, the risks that the inherent dangers that come along with racing bring seem to outweigh the possible rewards, at least for her. Her only real accomplishment in NASCAR is her pole at the 2013 Daytona 500, as she has not only never won a race in 181 tries, but she has never even finished in the top 5. The potential for her to be rewarded as a result of racing just doesn’t seem to exist.
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Of her seven career top 10 finishes, which comes out to about one top 10 finish for every 26 races in which she has competed, just one of them has come in the last 91 races. That lone top 10 finish in the last 91 races for Patrick was just a 10th place finish, and that came earlier this season at Dover. She hasn’t finished higher than 10th place in over two years.
Also, Patrick’s boyfriend Ricky Stenhouse Jr. currently races for Roush Fenway Racing, so that coupled with the fact that she has not performed well throughout her Cup Series career would make it seem logical for her to hang up her helmet after the 2017 season ends.
If Patrick and Stenhouse Jr. end up deciding to take their relationship any further by getting married and possibly starting a family, it would be better if their children don’t have two parents who are both full-time Cup Series drivers.
With Patrick having struggled throughout her Cup Series career and Stenhouse Jr. currently in the playoffs with two wins already this season, Stenhouse Jr. would likely be the parent that ended up continuing to drive. Plus, he is only 29 years old, while Patrick is 35.
Next: Five possible replacement candidates for Danica Patrick in 2018
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