“I Am a Little High Maintenance” – Danica Patrick Rejected Leaving NASCAR for F1 Due to a Bizarre Reason

Glass ceilings are tough to crack. But you ask Danica Patrick, and she’d probably give you a playful giggle. The first woman to lead the IndyCar 500; the first woman to win an IndyCar circuit race; first woman to win a pole position in a NASCAR race.

The Wisconsinite is one of the very few women to have made it to the top echelons of motor racing. She raced in the lower circuits of Formula racing early in her career. Then she shifted to NASCAR racing, with her last stint being in 2018 with Ed Carpenter Racing and Premium Motorsports.

Speaking to Rich Roll, she was asked “Do you ever wish you had raced Formula 1?”

“No, I don’t. Because what I ended up realizing when I came back from England… I realized that succeeding is about being good on the track and to be good on track I need to be in an environment where I am happy. I realized that at the end of the time when I was in England and I realized that I was happiest at home, with not only my family and friends but creature comforts,” she explained.

“Even something simple like breakfast. In England, they don’t really do very good breakfast there. Sweet onion sandwiches from the roadside are not gonna cut it. I am a little high-maintenance in that category,” said Danica.

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As discussions on mental health turn louder in elite sports, what Patrick says makes a lot of sense. Athletes suffer drastic dips in performance when they are unhappy in their personal lives so her decision to keep her happiness first only made her a better driver.

Danica Patrick holds an open discussion on her struggles with migraines

The driver is very open about her mental as well as physical health struggles while racing during her talk with Rich. Rich goes on to ask her about her migraine problems.

Danica said, “I used to get them [migraines] on Sunday night after my race, so Monday and Tuesday would be horrible. Sometimes they would make me feel nauseous, feel horrible…. Mine was [common denominator] some level of dehydration, so if I had one or two drinks after a Sunday night race I had a much higher chance of migraine the next day. Adrenaline up or adrenaline down were also triggers.”

“I realized my hydration drink had sugars in it, and that stuff causes headaches so I cut that out and shifted to water,” she pointed out.

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Patrick delves into a lot of professional and personal struggles over the 1-hour long talk with Rich. It helps one understand the difficulties, that we don’t otherwise have an idea about, in an elite athlete’s life.