“The effort level isn’t that high”: When Danica Patrick highlighted technical differences between IndyCar and NASCAR

Danica Patrick is the most successful woman driver in America's highest class of open-wheel racing, IndyCar. Before bringing the curtain down on her racing career in 2018, she took the time to talk about the differences between IndyCar and NASCAR back in January 2012.

Patrick's first taste of IndyCar came in 2005 at the Toyota Indy 300. However, by 2010, her interest started peaking towards NASCAR (stock car racing), and in line with this, she competed in her first Xfinity Series race in 2010 (DRIVE4COPD 300, Daytona).

In 2012, she made her Cup Series debut and in the same year, when she was asked to point out the differences between IndyCar and NASCAR, she had the following to add:

"There is a technology called 'power steering', which IndyCar still hasn’t discovered but NASCAR has, so the effort level isn’t that high. Of course, I haven’t had the misfortune of having the power steering go out during a race, so that will probably drastically change my mind," Danica Patrick said via Car and Driver.

Patrick competed in a total of 116 IndyCar Grands Prix (one race win, alongside seven podiums and three pole positions) and also made 191 starts in the NASCAR Cup Series (seven top-10s and one pole position). In Xfinity, she was able to put on board 61 races (seven top-10s and one pole position).

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Danica Patrick had to adjust to being seen as a 'role model'

While Danica Patrick talked about the differences between the above-mentioned racing categories back in 2012, via the same interview, she also took the time to shed light on her public image.

The 42-year-old was and still is an immensely influential figure when it comes to women's racing and in relation to this and her off-track gigs (modeling, advertising, spokesperson, among others), she had the following to say back in the day:

"No, I thought about accomplishing things on the track and what that would be like. But I didn’t put a lot of thought into what the other side was all about—the endorsements, the commercials, being told I’m a role model. So, yeah, it has taken some adjustment, and it can be distracting, especially when there are surges of attention," Danica Patrick added.

Since bringing her racing career to an end at the iconic 2018 Indy 500, she has taken up various kinds of things. In 2019, she launched her own podcast called Pretty Intense.

Other than this, Danica Patrick has often been spotted giving astute analysis during Grand Prix weekends of top motorsports (IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula 1). In 2024, she was seen on season 6 (based on the 2023 F1 season) of the immensely popular Drive to Survive series on Formula 1.