After recently being booed by the fans at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for some realistic comments over her car's performance, female driver Danica Patrick told the media that she wouldn't change IRL for Formula One because the atmosphere in the latter is less fun. As compared to the IRL, there are few if not nonexistent friendships between F1 drivers, most of them avoiding each other during racing weekends.
“Something that's very important to me is having fun. I think the environment of F1 is a little bit less friendly than American racing. In F1, you just don't see the drivers hanging out,” said Patrick in an interview with The Times.
“Drivers such as Takuma Sato , who came over after doing F1 for a while, says everyone's so nice here. And it's true - everyone is so calm, relaxed and friendly,” added the Andretti Autosport racer, who is also the first female driver to win a major open-wheeled racing event in the USA.
Patrick was close to making her first contact with the world of Formula One last year, when linked with a racing spot for US Grand Prix Engineering in the 2010 season. She eventually declined the offer and decided to make a partial switch to NASCAR, which eventually turned out to be the right choice, considering the team's failure to secure their F1 spot.
As for the future, Patrick insisted that the path she chose for the upcoming two seasons is hard to be overturned by any major decision she'll make, but left the door open for any opportunity.
“I'll never say never, but it would have to be a really unique opportunity for me to change what I'm doing. The schedule for this year and next year is to do both IndyCar and NASCAR and then decide if I want to do that again, or focus on one or the other. I always go with my gut,” added the 28-year old racer.
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