Chip Ganassi Racing likely to be Danica Patrick’s team in 2018 Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500
By Asher Fair
Chip Ganassi Racing will likely be the team for which Danica Patrick drives in next year’s Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500, her final NASCAR Cup Series and IndyCar races, respectively.
Danica Patrick, 35, recently announced that her full-time career as a race car driver would be coming to a close at the end of the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series season. In September, she announced that she would no longer be the driver of the #10 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing past the end of this season, her fifth season as the driver of that car in the Cup Series.
However, in an interview yesterday, she revealed that she would not be retiring completely from racing just yet. Patrick will be racing in the 2018 Daytona 500 on Sunday, February 18th at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida as well as the 2018 Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 27th at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana before officially putting an end to her racing career.
What the current NASCAR Cup Series and former IndyCar driver did not reveal in that interview was for which team she would be driving in those two signature events, the “Great American Race” and the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”. However, we have reason to believe that that team will be Chip Ganassi Racing for both events even though nothing has been officially confirmed up to this point in time.
Here is what Chip Ganassi Racing team owner Chip Ganassi had to say about the prospects of hiring Danica Patrick to drive in those two races.
"“I have talked to her and her representatives. I think it’s a fabulous idea, a fabulous marketing idea. It’s a fabulous opportunity. I just learned about all this yesterday. I’m a long way from saying I can do it. They were talking about one [of the races] or both. I need to know more. I need to talk to my people. There are a lot of moving parts.”"
Chip Ganassi Racing as Patrick’s destination in the Cup Series for the 2018 Daytona 500 makes sense because the team will be the only real top team with fewer than three full-time drivers since Team Penske is moving from a two to a three-car full-time operation next season, so teaming up with Kyle Larson and Jamie McMurray in the “Great American Race” is certainly an option for Patrick.
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Chip Ganassi Racing as Patrick’s destination in IndyCar as a teammate to four-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon and Ed Jones for the 2018 Indianapolis 500 also makes sense because the team is set to be just a two-car full-time team for the first time since the 2010 season next year.
Having fielded four cars on a full-time basis in six of the last seven seasons and no less than four cars in any of the last seven Indianapolis 500 races, Chip Ganassi Racing has more than enough resources available to them to field a third car in the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”.
Plus, it would be well worth it for Chip Ganassi Racing to hire Patrick given the popularity that she has had over the course of her racing career and the publicity that she would generate for the Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar in general in her first IndyCar start since 2011 — and the final race of her racing career.
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For which team will Danica Patrick be driving in the 2018 Daytona 500 and the 2018 Indianapolis 500? Will she be driving for Chip Ganassi Racing in one or even both of those races? We should know for sure in the coming weeks.