Danica Patrick

Patrick has all but retired from NASCAR at the end of 2017. She walked away from her No. 10 ride at Stewart Haas Racing, and now is looking to run just two more races in her eventful career. Patrick has set her sights on the Daytona 500 and the Indianapolis 500 in 2018 as being her final starts. Those plans have been slow to come together. It remains to be seen if she'll work out a deal to race in the two biggest races of the season in NASCAR and IRL.

Patrick has become the embodiment of a driver stuck in neutral in NASCAR. After four full-time seasons of racing at NASCAR's top level she seems to have peaked out at the mid-20s level of the driver standings. What was puzzling about last season for the driver of the No. 10 Ford, is that Patrick had no Top-10 finishes through the entire season, but somehow managed to bring down her average finish from 23.5 to 22.0 over the season before. We credit this to more Top-20 finishes and less DNF's. However, she still lacks the expertise and skill to crack the Top 10 any given week. While the consistency is improving, her lack of Top-10 finishes still limits Patrick from a fantasy racing standpoint. Aside from the change from Chevrolet to Ford, everything else about this team remains the same for 2017. A finish in the same part of the standings and rankings is somewhat predictable.

With three full seasons in the books we now have a real body of work and some trends to look to for Patrick. Entering season four, the Stewart Haas Racing driver has reached a cross-roads. She has seen her finishing and performance numbers go flat and the trend line seems pretty well set. Patrick only registered two top-10 finishes last season and saw her average finish remain nearly unchanged at 23.5. Qualifying well still seems to be a problem for the No. 10 team and Patrick starts races well back in the field with little chance of improving her average finish at the skill level she possesses. In 2016 she'll start another season with a new crew chief as Billy Scott comes on board to replace Daniel Knost. The search for some crew chief/driver chemistry continues for Patrick as she starts another season from scratch from that standpoint.

The media hype machine also known as Patrick will make her first full-time move into NASCAR. She will build on the 10-race experience that she had in 2012 and look to be competitive in a full Sprint Cup Series schedule. Patrick will have veteran crew chief Tony Gibson as a stabilizing presence atop the pit box and the full support an experienced Stewart Haas Racing team to guide her. Patrick showed signs of improvement as last season wore on so there is great optimism for 2013. She posted her first Top 20 at Phoenix in her final start last season, so Patrick did end the year on a positive note. The rigors of a full 36-race schedule loom ahead and many ups-and-downs along the way wait for NASCAR’s most famous female competitor.