Patrick Battles Ill-Handling Car

Danica Patrick struggled with an ill-handling car and finished a disappointing 27th in the rain-postponed Duck Commander 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race Monday afternoon at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

Patrick, driver of the No. 10 GoDaddy/Get Found Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), started 24th and early on dealt with a car that was tough to handle. Throughout the race, crew chief Tony Gibson made a series of changes – adjusting track bar, wedge, tire pressure and shocks and removing a spring rubber in the left-rear spring –to help improve the handling of the racecar.

The changes made the car better throughout the afternoon, but Patrick fell two laps behind the leaders and had to settle for a finish outside the top-25.

“We definitely made the GoDaddy/Get Found Chevy better throughout the race for sure, but the track changed a lot today with the weather, and I think that really hurt us,” said Patrick, who made her 53rd career Sprint Cup start and her fourth at Texas.“It was disappointing, because we had a fast racecar today; but we did make the right adjustments, and the pit crew did a nice job in the pits all day.”

Gibson said he was pleased with the effort of his GoDaddy/Get Found crew.

“We made a lot of changes today to help get the car into the racetrack better and to free the car up,” Gibson said. “The good thing is that we definitely were making the car better with those adjustments each stop. I’m proud of what the guys did on pit road, and I’m proud of the effort. I think we learned a lot today that hopefully will help us as we get into the schedule and go to more of these 1.5-mile tracks.”

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