Danica Patrick: IndyCar Winner, NASCAR Pioneer and Motorsport Media Figure

Danica Patrick is an American former racing driver who competed in the IndyCar Series from 2005 to 2011 and in the NASCAR Cup Series from 2012 to 2018. She is widely regarded as the most successful woman in American open-wheel history, and her 2008 Indy Japan 300 victory is the only IndyCar win by a woman. Her career also carried her into television, podcasting and a wine brand.

Who is Danica Patrick?

Danica Sue Patrick was born on 25 March 1982 in Beloit, Wisconsin. Her parents, Beverly Ann Patrick and Terry Joseph Patrick Jr., came from a working-class background and at one point owned a coffee shop and a glass company. She has a younger sister and was raised in Roscoe, Illinois.

Her ancestry is mixed: she is half Norwegian, and also has Irish, French-Canadian, Italian and Native American roots. Her early life was shaped by a family that organised and funded her racing, with her father acting as her crew chief and her mother keeping statistics.

Patrick was never set on racing as a child. She once considered a career as a secretary, a singer or a veterinarian. The move into karts came after her sister and she were given go-karts following a friend's offer to let her drive one.

The first woman to win an IndyCar race, and a Daytona 500 pole sitter who carried her profile far beyond the track.

How did Patrick's karting and early career begin?

Patrick began karting at Sugar River Raceway in Brodhead, Wisconsin. Her first session ended with a crash into a concrete wall at 25 mph (40 km/h) after a brake failure, but she was not injured. By the end of her first year she had finished second out of twenty drivers.

She improved steadily, setting age-specific track records at Sugar River Raceway and Michiana Raceway Park. She collected ten regional karting titles, plus the World Karting Association's Grand National crown in the Yamaha Sportsman class, and later won the HPV class three times, in 1994, 1996 and 1997.

The family sold merchandise featuring her to help pay for travel across the Midwest and beyond, and it set a rule that she avoid activities that could harm her public image. At 13 she asked to move to California for a year-round racing programme, but her parents declined because of business commitments.

In 1996 she was accepted into the Lyn St. James Foundation Driver Development Program in Indianapolis, where she learned the business side of the sport. ABC and MTV ran television segments about her in 1997, and John Mecom Jr. later hired her to race in the British championship.

What did Patrick's years in Britain and the Atlantic Series show?

Patrick dropped out of high school midway through her junior year in 1998, with her parents' consent, and obtained a GED. She moved to England and lived in Milton Keynes, where three-time Formula One world champion Jackie Stewart helped her and she socialised with drivers such as Jenson Button.

In Britain she raced in Formula Vauxhall and Formula Ford. She finished ninth in the 1999 British Formula Vauxhall Championship and competed for Haywood Racing in Formula Ford. In 2000 she was second at the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch, a result that matched Danny Sullivan's best performance by an American at the event.

Her funding eventually dried up, and she returned to the United States in 2001. That year she won the Gorsline Scholarship Award as the most aspiring road course competitor, and she was recognised as the top female open-wheel driver with international experience.

In 2002 she won the professional class of the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race, and Bobby Rahal signed her to a three-year contract with Rahal Letterman Racing. She raced five Barber Dodge Pro Series events that year, finishing 13th in points with a best of fourth at Vancouver.

In 2003 she switched to the Toyota Atlantic Series and became the first woman to race in the championship since 1974. She won the first podium for a woman in the series at the season-opening race in Monterey, and she finished sixth in the standings after five top-five results.

In 2004 she won a pole position at Portland, the first pole by a woman in the series, and a second place then gave her the points lead, the first time a woman had topped the standings. She ended that season third overall with ten top-five finishes in twelve races.

How did Patrick's IndyCar debut and rookie season go?

Rahal Letterman Racing named Patrick to its IndyCar roster for 2005 after finding the resources to run a third car. She started ninth at Homestead-Miami Speedway and suffered a crash that left her with a mild concussion.

At the Indy Japan 300 in Motegi, she started second and led 32 laps before settling for fourth, her best finish of the season. At the Indianapolis 500 she led nineteen laps and finished fourth, after she had set the fastest overall practice speed and had to conserve fuel during the race.

Her first career pole came at Kansas Speedway, making her the second woman in IndyCar history to take a pole after Sarah Fisher in 2002. She took two more poles at Kentucky and Chicagoland to match Tomas Scheckter's record for the most poles in a rookie season.

She finished her rookie year 12th in the points with 325 and seven top-ten finishes. The Indianapolis 500 and the series both named her Rookie of the Year,

How did Patrick's 2006 and 2007 seasons unfold?

In 2006 she returned to Rahal Letterman Racing and made her endurance debut at the 24 Hours of Daytona, co-driving a Pontiac Crawford with Rusty Wallace, Allan McNish and Jan Lammers. The car was in contention before overheating forced its retirement.

Her season was disrupted when the team withdrew from the season-opening Toyota Indy 300 after teammate Paul Dana was killed in a practice accident on race day. She finished sixth at St. Petersburg, eighth at Motegi and eighth at the Indianapolis 500 after starting tenth. In November the March of Dimes named her Sportswoman of the Year.

Before the 2007 season she moved to Andretti Green Racing. She again finished eighth at the Indianapolis 500 and took second at the Detroit Indy Grand Prix on Belle Isle, which was her best result of the year. She finished seventh in the standings with 424 points and eleven top-ten finishes.

Did Patrick win in IndyCar?

Yes. On 20 April 2008 she moved to the front with three laps remaining at the Indy Japan 300 at Motegi, and she held the lead to win. She became the first woman to win a top-level sanctioned open-wheel race, and that remains the only IndyCar win by a woman.

The 2008 season continued with several top-ten finishes, including a best of fifth at Infineon Raceway. She finished sixth in the championship with 379 points, the highest placing of any American driver that year.

Her best Indianapolis 500 came in 2009, when she finished third. That was the highest finish by a woman in the race's history. She ended the 2009 season fifth in the points, the highest finish for any non-Penske or non-Chip Ganassi driver that year.

Her form declined in 2010, although she twice finished second on ovals. She qualified 23rd at the Indianapolis 500 and finished sixth, and she ended the year tenth in the standings with 367 points. In 2011 she qualified 26th at Indianapolis, finished tenth after leading ten laps, and placed tenth again with 314 points.

Why did Patrick move to NASCAR?

Patrick began racing stock cars in 2010, entering an ARCA Racing Series race at Daytona and finishing sixth after an early spin. She also raced a limited Nationwide schedule with JR Motorsports, where her best early result was 19th at Homestead in her first year.

In 2011 she ran part of the Nationwide season with JR Motorsports and finished fourth at Las Vegas. That result made her the highest-finishing woman in national NASCAR history, ending a record that Sara Christian had held for 62 years. Her season also included a tenth at Daytona after leading thirteen laps.

In August 2011 she announced that she would focus on NASCAR full-time from 2012, ending her IndyCar career. She placed tenth in the 2011 IndyCar standings, and that was her final regular-season race in the series.

How did her Cup Series career play out?

In 2012 she ran a full Nationwide schedule and a limited Cup programme. She qualified on the pole for the DRIVE4COPD 300, becoming the second woman to do so in national NASCAR after Shawna Robinson in 1994. She finished tenth in the Nationwide standings.

In 2013 she set the fastest qualifying lap for the Daytona 500, the first woman to win a Cup Series pole. She finished eighth in the race, which made her the highest-placed woman in the history of the Daytona 500.

Her Cup career had difficult moments. At Bristol in 2012 she crashed after contact with Regan Smith, and at Phoenix her car leaked oil, prompting criticism of NASCAR's decision not to wave the caution flags. In 2014 she set records, including the first woman to lead at Talladega and fourth on the grid at the Coca-Cola 600.

In 2015 she became the first woman to start 100 Cup races. That year she was penalised for an intentional retaliatory crash against David Gilliland at Martinsville, losing 25 owner and driver points, paying a $50,000 fine and being put on probation.

She stepped back from full-time racing after the 2017 season, having announced her plans in November. She still competed in the 2018 Daytona 500 and the 2018 Indianapolis 500, where a crash on lap 68 ended her final race in the 500 with a 30th-place classification.

Over her NASCAR Cup career she made 191 starts and finished in the top ten in 3.6 per cent of them. She never won a race, but she set several milestones along the way.

What did Patrick do beyond racing?

Patrick hosted several shows on Spike, including Powerblock, and she appeared in the 2005 documentary Girl Racers. In 2010 she made her acting debut on CSI: NY and voiced herself in an episode of The Simpsons.

She has been part of many advertising campaigns, including fourteen Super Bowl commercials, more than any other celebrity. In 2018 she became the first woman to host the ESPY Awards.

Her broadcasting career grew steadily. NASCAR on Fox hired her as a booth analyst in 2015, she has been a studio analyst for NBC's Indianapolis 500 coverage since 2019, and she joined the Sky Sports F1 team as a pundit for the 2021 United States Grand Prix.

She launched the Pretty Intense podcast in August 2019 and has also owned a wine brand, Somnium, from a vineyard of 24 acres in St Helena's Howell Mountain area. She created an athleisure collection, Warrior by Danica Patrick, in partnership with G-III Apparel Group.

How was Patrick received by fans and critics?

Fans voted her the most popular driver in IndyCar from 2005 to 2010, and in 2012 they chose her as the most popular Nationwide driver. Commentators have credited her with increasing attendance and television ratings for motorsport, and many young girls have said she inspired them to race.

Critics were less kind. Some fans called her a gimmick or a publicity stunt because of her limited results, and comparisons with tennis player Anna Kournikova were common. Kyle Petty called her a marketing machine in 2013 and said she was not a race car driver.

Her public image also drew commercial attention. She appeared on magazine covers including FHM, Sports Illustrated and ESPN: The Magazine, and her endorsement deals generated a Q Score peak of 29 in 2010, according to industry measures.

How do her results compare across series?