Car owner Gene Haas tells Motorsport.com that there are some “very good sponsors that are in the process of signing up” to be with Danica Patrick next year.
Haas’ comment falls in line with what Brett Frood, executive vice president at Stewart-Haas Racing, told NASCAR Talk last month when he said they were looking to have sponsor deals by the end of the summer.
GoDaddy announced in April that it would end its longtime sponsorship of Patrick’s cars. This also is the final year of Patrick’s contract with the team.
“We told her we wanted her to come back,” Haas told Motorsport.com. “She’s been very flexible about everything. It all has to happen at the same time. You can’t really sign a driver until you have a sponsor. You have to know how much money you’re going to get from the sponsor and that kind of translates into the deal you make with the driver. I think it’s all going good.”
Patrick finished 27th in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. She is 22nd in the points. She finished a career-high 27th in the points as a rookie in 2013. Patrick has two top-10 finishes this season and six in her career.
“Every year she gets a little better,” Haas told Motorsport.com. “She’s better this year than she was last year. So I think she’s kind of improving. Statistically, we see that.
“Danica is a special person, too, because she has so much demand for her image, and we like that. We really like that. That’s a good balance. Even if her performance is taking longer than we’d like, she has so much consumer demand that it balances it out really well.”
