Former NASCAR and IndyCar driver Danica Patrick didn’t hold back during an appearance on Kenny Wallace’s podcast in 2024, candidly naming three drivers she found particularly aggressive and disrespectful: Joey Logano, Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin.
Patrick, who recently used July 4 to voice her support of President Donald Trump, opened up about her frustrations with Logano’s driving style, calling him one of the most difficult drivers to deal with on track.
“They both have some enemies, but I think Joey has more,” she said when comparing Logano and Hamlin, while the two drivers stand on opposite sides of NASCAR’s horsepower debate. “I had issues with both of them.”
Despite getting along with Logano off the track, Patrick said his behavior on race day made it hard to separate the professional from the personal. “Like with Joey – I actually got along with Joey off track just fine, but on track, he was such a pain in the ass,” she explained.
“Listen, for me, you can’t separate the two. You can’t separate the person on track from the person off track. They’re both you.”
Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.
Patrick was even more pointed in her criticism of Martin Truex Jr., saying her issues with him extended well beyond racing etiquette.
“You know, I just felt like on track, he was such a dick when he didn’t need to be,” she said. “He’d drive way too close when he was lapping me, get me loose – just stupid stuff like that. It seemed very disrespectful and unnecessarily aggressive.”
She also touched on her disapproval of Truex’s relationship with longtime partner Sherry Pollex. “I always thought he could have done a better job with her. I know I caught a lot of flack for saying that not long ago.”
Still, Patrick stood by her remarks, saying, “People texted me and said, ‘You said what we wanted to say.’ Plenty of people were like, ‘Go, girl – you’ve got more balls than I do.'”
As for Hamlin, while Patrick called him “a total ass on the track,” she offered a more nuanced take, acknowledging his strategic approach to racing.
DON’T MISS
“I don’t think he’s as bad as some, but he’s definitely aggressive. I think he waits for his moment a little later. He’s not just doing it from the beginning just to do it-he waits until later in the race. He’s a ‘lay a fender’ kind of guy,” she said.
Still, she hasn’t forgotten their on-track run-ins. “He took me out in practice – got so close to me and spun me. That kind of stuff was totally unnecessary,” she recalled of an incident at Daytona.
Patrick emphasized that her opinions were shaped by firsthand experience and that others in the garage might see things differently.
“This is my truth, my experience-also my opinions. Everyone’s going to have different ones.”