Danica Patrick has been cruising along in the fast lane since the Indy Racing League got underway. Of the nine starts she has made on the open wheel race circuit this season, seven have turned into top-10 finishes.
Close has been good enough to keep her thinking another victory could be around the next corner.
“Running consistently every weekend says you are going to have a chance at that win at some point. If you consistently run in the top five, the odds should be in your favour. You should have that opportunity to come across the line first,” said Patrick, who is in Toronto preparing for the first Canadian race of the season.
In two weeks time, she’ll be back in Edmonton to challenge the airport track at the Rexall Indy.
“It is quite rough at Edmonton so you have to hang on and be on top of that car but it makes for better racing on tracks like that are more open. You have an opportunity to pass,” Patrick continued. Edmonton Journal
Last July, in her first go-round in Edmonton, Patrick was 13 laps from the finish line when she was bumped by teammate Marco Andretti. Left with a flat tire and a car in need of a restart, she had to make an unscheduled pit stop, which cost her all the ground she had made up earlier in the race.
This season hasn’t been without controversy either.
In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Patrick was asked if she could take a performance enhancing drug that would enable her to win Indy but not get caught, would she do it?
“Well, then it’s not cheating, is it?,” she responded. “If nobody finds out? . . . In motorsports we work in the grey areas a lot. You’re trying to find where the holes are in the rule book.”
She later issued an apology, and on Thursday, used the defence that she was just kidding.
“I know from no one that it’s something I won’t be joking about,” she said. Vancouver Sun
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