Danica Patrick: Finding a female driver not important to me - race against guys!
The former INDYCAR and NASCAR driver was one of the most feted female motorsports stars, and is now a Sky Sports F1 broadcaster.
She recently insisted “the nature of the sport is masculine” and “not normal in a feminine mind, a female mind” but has now fully explained herself.
The Sky F1 podcast asked Patrick about developing a female driver and and she answered: "You're assuming I want that, you're assuming that is important to me. It's not.
"It's always an interesting stance I have on it. What makes the sport really popular is great racing - you can have half the field out there, women, and have it be follow the leader. It's not going to be interesting to watch.
"Good racing, and that's what we have so much of these days in Formula 1, pretty much everything other than Max is a toss-up for who's going to be second, third, fourth, fifth that weekend, and so that's what makes it really appealing.
"As someone who was a girl, you've just got to come up like normal."
The F1 Academy is a new initiative designed at developing female motorsports talents.
"I do have a bit of, not a criticism, but an opinion about female series. It's fine, it can give opportunity for some who might not get a chance otherwise to show what they can do, but at the end of the day, you're going to have to race against guys.
"When you watch golf, you watch that a lot of times, a golfer that's maybe not ranked as high, will rise to the occasion with whoever he's golfing with, and I think that tends to happen in all sports.
"That's why you see some of the best wanting to practice and be with the best, because then they get better. If you bench yourself off something that's not the best, then it's going to affect your effort level, your mental goal, what you envision yourself doing.
"So you really have to put yourself in the toughest situations and you might as well do it early because it's only going to get harder.
"Giving proper tests, to be able to see if a female driver is fast enough, is a great way to know if there should be a next step forward.
"But beyond that, they should be racing with the guys, I think racing in the same series, and they've just got to get people around them that believe in them.
"I think the more times that you put yourself in a position to show what you can do, the better off you are, and it's better to be in the car than not.
"So I think just more cars, more track time and more opportunities to show what you can do is just always a good thing."
