NASCAR Cup Series

Danica Patrick feels best finish of season could have been even better

Published Apr. 5, 2016 9:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

At first glance, Danica Patrick's 16th-place finish in the STP 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway was nothing special.

But it represented progress, as it was her best finish of this young 2016 season -- and she ran as high as seventh during the 500-lap event.

When it was over, Patrick looked at her No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet and knew she had survived the day as much as anything. Not that beating and banging on other cars throughout an afternoon at the .526-mile short track is anything unusual for Patrick or anyone else.

"I feel like it was one of those typical Martinsville's where there is a lot of body-work damage," Patrick said. "I look at everyone else's car and there is (damage to their cars), too."

Yet when the day was done, Patrick admitted she could have perhaps managed an even better finish.

"I think our biggest problem was just we generally had some inconsistency with runs," Patrick said. "We would have a good one, then a bad one.

"Luckily, we started the race off with a good 90 laps where we were really making a lot of progress the last half of it. It wasn't taking off as well (on the restarts) and then we did some changes later on that helped that."

Patrick blamed "some tire inconsistencies" for the stretches when she struggled the most.

"I think that was kind of one of our problems, but in general I thought we had a pretty solid day," she said. "We had a lot of contact with a lot of cars, but I feel like that is also fun to watch. It's fun to watch as a fan and it makes it fun inside the car.

"You take matters into your own hands pretty easily at Martinsville. It was, all in all, a pretty decent day for the TaxAct car. I was really hoping when we got inside the top 10 we would hold, but that run it just went loose and that set of tires was a little different. It is what it is."