"I don't regret my instincts or emotions": When Danica Patrick refused to apologize for her feud with Dan Wheldon

Danica Patrick got into an intense rivalry with the late IndyCar champion Dan Wheldon in 2007. Their feud stemmed from an incident at that year's Milwaukee Mile, where the two drivers' cars made contact on the track.

Then-Andretti Green Racing driver Danica Patrick's race was destroyed after their clash on track damaged the steering of her car.

"This is going to be a tough car to drive," she explained on her team radio (1:37 onwards). "Wheldon hit me. Wheldon came down."

The Texas native also shared a furious message on her radio, albeit in a nonchalant tone. She said (1:59 onwards):

"I'd like to brake check Wheldon right now, just rip his front wing off."

Post-race, Patrick confronted Wheldon in the pits and shoved him. They exchanged some sour words in interviews, and the Chip Ganassi Racing star warned his rival about the fight she picked.

"She’s messing with the wrong person if she wants to get feisty, that’s for sure. Because I’m a lot tougher than she is on track," Wheldon said (3:40 onwards).

The feud was eventually solved after a meeting with IndyCar President Brian Barnhart. However, in 2008, Patrick lost her cool again after Ryan Briscoe hit her car in the pits at the Indy 500, ending her victory hopes. With the Wheldon incident and now this, she addressed her infamous handling of them, saying:

"I don't regret my instincts and emotions, nor can I change them very easily. I try to not live with those kinds of regrets. I think everything happens for a reason."

Similar to her reconciliation with Dan Wheldon, Patrick and Briscoe's incident also ended with them moving on from it and focusing on the next race.

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Danica Patrick wept over Dan Wheldon's heartbreaking death at the Las Vegas Indy 300

Danica Patrick at the Sam's Town 300 - Source: Getty

The 2011 IndyCar race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway was immortalized in the sport's history for a horrifyingly infamous 15-car crash that took the life of Dan Wheldon.

The incident began as a slight jostle between two cars but ended up with several cars lighting on fire and smoke consuming that part of the racetrack. Wheldon's car was the only one that didn't hit the shock-absorbent retaining wall but went over it and smashed into the catch fence after being airborne for 325 feet.

Wheldon, who won that year's Indy 500, went head-first into a post on the fence that led to "unsurvivable injuries," to which he succumbed later in the hospital. Danica Patrick spoke about the incident immediately after it with ABC News. She said (via BleacherReport):

"There was debris everywhere, you could smell smoke and see the billowing smoke. I hope, I hope everyone is OK. I heard about Dan. You just don't want to be in that position."

In another interview with Inside Edition, the No. 7 driver got emotional as she spoke about her former rival's ill-fated incident.

"He was a friend of all of us. He'll be missed and I feel for his family," she said.

That race was also Danica Patrick's last IndyCar race as a full-time driver before she shifted disciplines to drive in NASCAR full-time in 2012.