Monday Morning Crew Chief
Written by David Lamm · May 7, 2007
Danica Patrick Will Win The Indy 500
Top Ten reasons why Danica Patrick will win the Indy 500:
1. Patrick is ready to win her first IndyCar race after 35 career starts and her best track remains the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Supposedly, the average number of IndyCar races a driver runs before the first victory is 33. In any case, Danica’s due. The number of drivers who have won their first IndyCar race at Indianapolis are few in number, but include the likes of Troy Ruttman and Graham Hill.
2. Patrick set the fastest lap of the month at Indy two years ago while driving for Rahal Letterman Racing. That resulted from driving talent and the Panoz-Honda combination, not any weight advantage. Her teammate that year at Rahal Letterman, Vitor Meira, barely outweighed her and had the same equipment plus far more experience… .
3. How many other drivers can say they have taken the lead in Turn 1 on a re-start within 11 laps of the checkers? The guy Patrick passed — eventual 2005 winner Dan Wheldon — surely didn’t cut her any slack.
4. There’s something to the old racing adage about losing a race before learning how to win it. In the case of Danica, a fuel mileage gamble kept her in the 2005 race and also took her out of it before the finish. Patrick knows what it takes to be in position to win, i.e. how to take the lead on a re-start when the race is on the line.
5. It takes luck to win at Indy and Patrick’s luck generally runs well at the Brickyard. She survived a pit stop snafu and a multi-car wreck she started herself under yellow in 2005 and was still in the running. If the critics say she was lucky, who’s to argue that any Indy 500 winner needs some luck? As for incentive, think of the millions Danica will make if she scores at the Brickyard.
6. The guy who won last year, Sam Hornish, spent most of his life pursuing a victory in the Indy 500 and finally got it with the right team last year, Penske Racing. Former karting champion Patrick, who would tell anyone she met as a 12-year-old that she was going to win the 500, enters at Indy with a good team for the third straight year. Her new team, Andretti Green Racing, has posted a first in 2005, plus a second and third last year.
7. For those cynical types who might think Patrick was added to AGR to boost the team’s over-all budget with her Motorola and Honda sponsorship, it’s worthwhile to note that team principal Kim Green charts her race strategy. He’s not in that role to finish second.
8. Last year, Patrick suffered all month with the Panoz chassis. The car was poorly balanced and just not fast enough when the IRL forced Panoz to change a suspect undertray that aided straightaway speeds in 2004 and 2005. After struggling all month last year to coax speed from a bad chassis, this year Patrick returns with a competitive Dallara machine. In such cases, the lap times and confidence usually improve considerably. (See the Penske and Ganassi teams during the 2006 season when they moved from underpowered Toyota V-8’s to Honda engines.)
9. OK, OK. Patrick has registered two pit snafus in her first four races with AGR, taking teammate Tony Kanaan out of contention at Motegi and crashing in Homestead at the pit entrance. Such issues often occur with a change in teams. After four races and a month of May at Indy, these problems should be ironed out.
10. If Danica doesn’t win this year, there’s always next year and the years after. She won’t run out of sponsorship because of her performance, not her gender or good looks. Judging by her finish of 8th with a desultory chassis last year, when she was one of 10 drivers to finish on the lead lap, Patrick won’t run out of teams that believe she can make history at Indy.
Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jingram666@cs.com
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In her dreams!