Danica Patrick and the No. 10 Nature’s Bakery Chevrolet SS team for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) scored a 29th-place finish in Sunday’s Can-Am 500k NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway.
Patrick started Sunday’s race from the 16th position, which marked a career-best qualifying effort for her at the mile oval. While she was able to work her way up to 13th in the initial laps of the race, the No. 10 Nature’s Bakery Chevrolet soon developed a bad push, and Patrick dropped back to the 33rd spot before crew chief Billy Scott called her to pit road at lap 72. The team made a green-flag stop for tires, fuel and air pressure and wedge adjustments.
Patrick continued to struggle with the car’s handling for much of the race. Scott called for various changes throughout the day – including wedge, air pressure and packer changes and addition of a spring rubber – in an effort to improve the car’s handling. While Patrick noted some improvement, she was multiple laps down to the leader and was unable to make up significant ground in the late stages of the race. Patrick took the checkered flag in the 29th position.
“We came into the weekend with the goal of improving our qualifying results, and at least we were able to accomplish that,” Patrick said. “Unfortunately, today was one of those disaster-type of days for the team. It pushed so bad, and we got caught laps down early and just weren’t able to recover and get a solid finish. I sure didn’t think today was going to end up like this, and I hate it for everyone on the Nature’s Bakery team.”
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