NASCAR Cup Series: One final chance for Danica Patrick

By Asher Fair | Feb 18, 2018

DAYTONA BEACH, FL - FEBRUARY 14: Danica Patrick, driver of the #7 GoDaddy Chevrolet, talks to the media during the Daytona 500 Media Day at Daytona International Speedway on February 14, 2018 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images) /

Danica Patrick has one last chance to have success in the NASCAR Cup Series before she officially retires. That chances comes in today’s Daytona 500.

Throughout much of the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series season, her fifth season as a full-time driver in the series, it was speculated that 35-year-old Danica Patrick would not return to the sport in the 2018 season as the driver of the #10 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing.

This speculation arose as a result of several reasons, with the two most notable reasons being the fact that her results in the Cup Series have never been great in addition to the fact that she had had recent sponsorship issues.

When it was confirmed in September that Patrick would not be returning to Stewart-Haas Racing in the 2018 season, focus immediately turned toward her future. Would she return to the Cup Series as a driver for another team? Would she return to IndyCar for the first time since the 2011 season? Would she retire altogether?

Two days prior to the 2017 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida, Patrick made it official: she would not be returning to the Cup Series as a full-time driver in the 2018 season.

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However, she did not retire altogether. She made it clear that she plans to compete in one final Cup Series race, which is the 2018 Daytona 500, and one final IndyCar race, which is the 2018 Indianapolis 500, before she officially retires from her job as a race car driver.

The Daytona 500 is set to take place later today, and it is Patrick’s final chance to have success in the Cup Series. In 190 career Cup Series starts, she has just seven top 10 finishes and has never finished higher than 6th place, a result she pulled off at Atlanta in the 2014 season.

With a top finish of only 24th place in the championship standings in her five full-time seasons in the Cup Series driving for Stewart-Haas Racing, which is one of the sport’s top teams, her career in the sport from a results standpoint has been a major disappointment.

She has one last chance to turn things around in today’s running of the Daytona 500, but it certainly won’t be easy for her driving the #7 Chevrolet for Premium Motorsports, a team that is among the most underfunded teams in the sport. She is set to start the 200-lap race on the 2.5-mile tri-oval in 28th place out of 40 drivers.

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Danica Patrick has had 190 previous opportunities to win a race in the NASCAR Cup Series, or at least finish on the podium or in the top 5. She has failed to convert on each and every one of those opportunities. Will that change in career start #191 in the 60th annual Daytona 500 later today?