Indy 500: Seven years (84 months) later, Danica Patrick returns

By Asher Fair | May 1, 2018

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - MAY 29: Danica Patrick, driver of the #7 Team GoDaddy Dallara Honda, stands next to her car prior to the IZOD IndyCar Series Indianapolis 500 Mile Race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 29, 2011 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images) /

Danica Patrick is set to make her long-awaited return to the Indy 500 later this month. She makes her return to Indianapolis Motor Speedway in an IndyCar today.

Seven years have passed since Danica Patrick last drove an IndyCar at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana to compete in an Indianapolis 500 for what many people grew to believe would be her seventh and final attempt in the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”.

Here we are 84 months after the 2011 Indianapolis 500, and Patrick is set to get back into the cockpit of an IndyCar at the historic four-turn, 2.5-mile oval track in Speedway, Indiana after one season as a full-time driver in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2012 and five seasons as a full-time driver in the NASCAR Cup Series from 2013 to 2017.

Patrick, 36, announced last November that she would not be returning to the NASCAR Cup Series for a sixth consecutive full-time season in 2018, but she announced that she would not be retiring from racing just yet.

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She made clear that she planned to drive in the 2018 Daytona 500 and the 2018 Indianapolis 500 before she officially ended her career as a professional race car driver. She did drive in the Daytona 500 for Premium Motorsports with sponsorship from GoDaddy, thus reuniting with one of her old and perhaps her most iconic sponsor, but she crashed out of the race.

It was also confirmed that Patrick would be driving for Ed Carpenter Racing in the Indy 500, and it was later confirmed that she would be driving the #13 Chevrolet for the team in the race, also with sponsorship from GoDaddy.

After all of that, Patrick is set to make her long-awaited return to Indianapolis Motor Speedway in an IndyCar today just a few hours from now in the veteran refresher test.

The IndyCars have certainly changed a lot from when Patrick left the series following the 2011 season finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which resulted in a tragic 15-car crash that killed two-time Indy 500 champion Dan Wheldon.

From the introduction of the DW12 chassis in the 2012 season to the introduction of the Honda and Chevrolet aero kits in the 2015 season to the introduction of the new universal aero kit to start the 2018 season, almost nothing is the same since Patrick last drove an IndyCar.

How will she adapt? Is she really at less of a disadvantage than she would ordinarily be since everyone else is also learning the new car at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, even the full-time veterans of the series? We will see how she performs in her first day of testing in just a few hours.

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How will Danica Patrick perform during her first session driving an IndyCar at Indianapolis Motor Speedway since the 95th running of the Indy 500 back in 2011? Tune in to IndyCar Race Control today from 10:00 am ET to 1:00 pm ET and 2:00 pm ET to 5:00 pm ET for the second test session at the track of the week.