Danica Patrick and the No. 10 Nature’s Bakery Chevrolet SS team for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) finished 21st in Sunday’s Kobalt 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Patrick started the race from the 18th position and spent a majority of the event battling near the 20th spot. Extreme weather conditions were part of the equation Sunday for the new combination of Patrick and crew chief Billy Scott. Wind, raindrops and cooler temperatures in the early going soon changed to bright sun over the course of the 400-mile race.
The tandem kept working throughout the race on improving the No. 10 machine, beginning with adjustments during a lap-83 pit stop. After cycling through green-flag stops, Patrick climbed from 27th to 25th. During a lap-98 caution, the team decided to stay out and take the wave-around to join the back of the lead line, helping Patrick climb from 25th to 18th by lap 152. She bounced between positions 19 and 20 during the next 26 laps before another round of changes were made on the car during a lap-181 caution.
Patrick was able to avoid a multicar accident on lap 225 and made a pit stop for final adjustments. She restarted 20th and spent the final 30 laps making consistent laps. Her ultimate 21st-place finish tied her career-best result at the track from 2014.
“I’m really proud of my Nature’s Bakery team for the changes they made throughout the day and keeping us in our spot today,” Patrick said. “I didn’t feel like I had a lot of speed. It just seemed like I was carrying an anchor early in the runs. Billy and I are still working with how the car works and how we load each corner of the car. Learning what I like in it. We’re not way off. We just have to find something to get us to the next group. We have to find a couple of tenths. We are making progress. Some of it is behind the scenes more with learning than it is with results at this point. We’ve had three races and made steady improvement through the race with the car and that’s important, because it means my communication and his understanding is good. We’ll keep working. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the finish we wanted today, but we had a steady day and missed the big accident.”
TSC PR
