NASCAR Cup Series

De Silvestro trying to escape Patrick's shadow

Published May. 5, 2010 4:47 p.m. ET

foxsports

Simona De Silvestro can't avoid the topic. At the track and away from it, from the media and the fans, all she seems to hear about is Danica Patrick.

As a rookie driver in the IndyCar Series and a woman, De Silvestro isn't going shake the shadow of open-wheel racing's glamour girl anytime soon.

Thing is, other than being a woman, De Silvestro doesn't have a whole lot in common with Patrick. Doesn't need the attention. Has no interest in doing racy advertisements or bikini shoots. Doesn't even have her ears pierced.

De Silvestro just wants to run ahead of the pack, beat not just Patrick, but the rest of IndyCar's top drivers.

``Danica has done a lot for women in the sport, but we really have different personalities,'' De Silvestro said. ``For me, the most important thing is to go fast, do my talking on the track.''

The owners of De Silvestro's Team Stargate Worlds/HVM Racing team acknowledge gender had a role in hiring her. Economic times are tough. Sponsorships are hard to come by. Even with the number of female drivers seeming to grow every year, it's still a novelty, enough to draw attention to the team and the sport.

But there's too much at stake to hire a driver just because she's a woman. Fail on the track and the experiment becomes just a novelty that quickly wears off, the sponsorship dollars disappearing as the interest wanes.

The only way the owners were going to hire De Silvestro was if she could drive.

It took them about 10 laps to figure it out.

De Silvestro drew the owners' interest by nearly winning the 2009 Atlantic Championship. She then solidified her ride with an impressive performance at a testing session at Sebring International Raceway in Florida.

``We went into the test with an open mind: let's put her in a car and see how it goes,'' said Keith Wiggins, one of the team principals. ``First 10 laps, I was like 'OK, she's good,' so it seemed like a natural fit. She's just a driver. She got in the car, she wasn't afraid of it, she was already giving us feedback on the first day. She's just fast.''

De Silvestro has always been that way.

She was drawn to racing as a 4-year-old in Switzerland when her father held a go-cart demonstration at his car dealership. Little Simona couldn't reach the pedals, but hounded her father into getting her a cart by the time she was 6.

De Silvestro started to get serious around 11, racing in European mini-carts, and progressed through the ranks. She came over to the U.S. in 2006 to race in Formula BMW USA and made the move to Atlantics a year later.

De Silvestro finished eighth in the 2008 championship, winning her first race at Long Beach on the same weekend Patrick earned her historic victory in Japan.

The ``Swiss Miss'' - a nickname she doesn't particularly like - was arguably the best driver in Atlantics last year, winning four times and leading the most laps, but lost a chance at the championship with a crash in the season finale.

The successful road led to her shot at IndyCars this year, fulfilling the dreams of that 4-year-old who couldn't reach the pedals.

``When you're small, you think Formula One or IndyCar, but when you're here, you realize it's something really special,'' De Silvestro said.

With opportunity came a bigger challenge.

IndyCars are bigger and faster than anything De Silvestro has driven before, so there's been a bit of an adjustment period, particularly since she hasn't been able to load up on test sessions.

She handled herself well on the four road courses to open the season, though there were the usual and expected rookie mistakes, including a downshift that caused a spinout at Alabama.

De Silvestro got her first taste of the speed and traffic that comes with oval racing last weekend at Kansas and quickly started picking up things there, too. She ran as high as 12th and finished 21st despite hitting 200 mph on a track for the first time just a few days earlier.

``It hasn't been any different from any other driver who moves up a category,'' Wiggins said. ``She's had to just get used to a bigger car, a heavier car and all the things that go with it. All that stuff's been knew to her, but we've treated her just like anyone else, pushing her to be better.''

Being treated like anyone else might be the best part.

De Silvestro is starting her IndyCar career at a time when women drivers still aren't prevalent, meaning she's going to get extra attention. She's also coming up at the height of Patrick's popularity and will have to deal with that comparison.

But with the progress she's already made and the drive she has to get better, it may not be long before De Silvestro is just another IndyCar driver - and all the questions about Patrick stop.

``I think it's normal that people are going to ask me every time, especially because Danica is the most known race car driver pretty much in the world. Racing against her is pretty cool, but it's not my goal to beat her. I want to beat everyone else on the track.''