Official confirmation is expected shortly, but with all of the speculation surrounding Patrick's future and the recent shakeup in ownership at AGR, it looks like the two will be staying together. (LAT)
Danica Patrick pretty much confirmed Saturday that not only was she staying in the Indy Racing League, she's also staying put at Andretti Green Racing.
Just two days after Michael Andretti announced he was taking charge of the racing team Patrick has been with since 2007, IndyCar's biggest star acknowledged she was happy with the changes and wants to be part of solution.
"Every team has its pitfalls and people who are difficult but I like some of the changes being made for this team and that's good for me," said Patrick, who is fifth in the point standings and having her best season with Andretti calling her strategy.
"This is a great team and it's won a lot of races and there's no reason to think we can't do it again. Michael has so much passion and is such a good leader.
"My deal isn't finalized but things are going well and clearly moving forward and that's good."
Andretti said he was getting close to re-signing Patrick and happy with the progress. It's assumed the new deal will be announced this week at Chicago, the home of Motorola and where IndyCar races Saturday night in Joliet.
Sponsored by Motorola to the tune of $21 million the past three seasons, Patrick has added Boost Mobile as a backer in 2009. She was asked if those relationships will continue?
"I spent two days last week with the Boost Mobile president and we talked about when we get this deal done, we need to come up with some cool concepts for next year," she replied.
"Anything somebody is talking about the future, it's implied you're in it and everybody seems happy at Boost Mobile. Boost Mobile has a good relationship with Motorola."
It was known Target/Ganassi had spoken to the only woman to ever witn an Indy car race but she said her's was a short list.
"Other than Penske, where they've already got more drivers than cars, there no other team rather than AGR or Ganassi you would want to go to," she continued.
Andretti, whose partners Kim Green and Kevin Savoree will be out of the racing side at the end of '09 and focus only on Andretti Green Promotions in the future, has impressed Patrick with his willingness to make changes.
"We had some conversations a couple months ago about where Mike wants to go with this team and that meant a lot to me," she said. "He said if you want the same results, just keep doing what you're doing but he didn't want to do that.
"We really haven't shown well this year and he wants to get us back on top. Michael has been more involved and he's been in my pit box every weekend and that's also been good. He's really getting into the business side of things and he's getting a good feel for it."
Asked about the possibilities of switching to NASCAR, Patrick said: "I think at the end of the day, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know."
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, SPEED, FOX, or NewsCorp.
