Sometimes its difficult to understand how some people just cant get a break. Many people would argue that Danica Patrick has caught more than her share of breaks through the first decade of her career and that may be the truth in some ways. When it comes to racing though, she has been very unlucky at times. Her qualifying wreck is just one of those times.
After wrecking in qualifying in an incident which well left me scratching my middle aged head. She had to go to her backup car. Contact was made between Danica and Denny Hamlin. Hamlin seemed to go into a space on Danica's left and essentially go three wide in the turn and Danica drifted over onto his line and contact send her into the wall and she collected two other cars on the way. Her car was destroyed.
The images below are taken from Fox13now.com.
Hamlin still behind Danica
Hamlin starts making his move
Hamlin just about 3 wide Danica starts moving over
The last shot before Contact pay careful attention to the angles of the lines on the roofs of the cars and the rear wheel arches. Danica's car is turning in while Hamlin and even Smoke's cars appear to be going straight. Shes turning in.
Contact ! Notice the attitude of the number 10 in relation to the other cars, also watch the space on Hamlin's left.
Perhaps the contact is exaggerating this shot but here you can see how far Danica has come over and how far Hamlin has moved over.
At first when I saw the incident I thought, "Danica why did you move over?" then watching the replay over and over I started to think, "Denny why did you leave the draft and go three wide right there?" I suppose some may say well its clearly her fault and others would say its Hamlin's fault. It really depends which side of the fence you sit on. If you are a Danica fan you will blame Hamlin and if you're a Hamlin fan, you'll be blaming Danica.
One thing is for sure though and that is that Hamlin was very aggressive considering that this is practice not the race. You really don't need to be that aggressive and at the end of the day Danica came out of all of this with the most damage to her car by far.
Hamlin did come within a whisker of admitting that it was his fault by saying only that he supposes that this was his fault because its only practice and you don't need to take risks like that in practice.
My personal opinion ..... I would blame both of them. Hamlin's move to go three wide was in my opinion bordering on semi brain fade and he seemed to have put himself in a tight spot that was always gonna have him in a tight space. As you can see from the images above he came very close to the cars on his inside. I don't think that any of the other drivers expected him to do that. Everyone else was two wide at that point. A classic commentator in Formula One, Murry Walker once said, "No race is ever won by the first turn and you need to get through it first to stand a chance of winning". All of this happened in practice they were not even in the race yet. So why do that? Why take that chance? Who knows.
As for Danica..... well I am sad to say as a huge fan that she moved over into him, Why I am not sure, she may not have seen him, her spotter may not have told her he was there, Hamlin's lunge over to the center was very sudden but the fact still remains she moved over and it looked very much like she was blocking the move. Its as clear as daylight on that replay. Have a look at the pictures above and you will notice that the angles of the roofs and wheel arches of all the other cars seem to be straight however just before the contact Danica's are not and she is moving over. It almost appears as aggressive a move as Hamlin's going three wide.
I am a huge fan but I have to stay objective other wise I am no different to the prejudice filled uninformed crazies that seem to patrol the twitter feeds looking for anything that's Danica related, to spread their Danica negativity. Perhaps Danica is going to be more aggressive this year and take more chances. In this case perhaps she wanted to show that she is willing to mix things up. If that is the case, then yes, Hamlin knows now that he is not gonna push her around, she will close that door that last season seemed to be permanently open. She will also know now that fighting back sometimes leaves you worse off. This is all speculation though because after her wrecked Chevy came to a stop on the infield grass she says,"Who hit me?" Confirming that she has no idea what just happened.
The most obvious answer though is ..... "That is racing!" simply put.
Qualifying was really a bit of a disaster.
With a new qualifying format that leaves you wondering if you actually understand this correctly? I wish that NASCAR would just leave certain things alone. Qualifying should be about doing the best you can, setting the fastest time you can. It should not be about qualifying in a gaggle of other cars, in groups and then work out how long and who was this and who did that ... and because this happens sorry but now your affected.... I mean really why don't use some algebra or perhaps include some Pythagoras...... to really complicate things.
Just let them qualify...
Danica qualified with only the 32nd fastest time. Then she was involved in the wreck and that ultimately is very bad news for Danica. She would have started in 16th spot for the first Duel, but now because she is in the backup car, she goes to the back of the grid. More bad news. She will have to finish no lower than 15th in the qualifier race to make the start of the Daytona 500.
At this point one more mistake, one more wreck, one more problem could take her out of the Daytona 500 completely. That has to be weighing very heavily on her mind at this time. Danica is a driver who is very in touch with all her sponsors and she will be without a single shadow of a doubt be wanting to do her absolute best for them.
She needs to be conservative in her approach and her only goal at this point should be to make it to the race. Once there she can give it everything she has and do the best she can.
Not making the race would be an absolute disaster for Danica.
I will be holding my rabbits foot, polishing my horse shoe, collecting as many four leaf clovers as I can, wishing on every shooting star and holding firmly onto every wishbone I can get my hands on.
Good luck Danica
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