Danica Patrick All Set For Daytona Coke Zero 400 Sprint Cup

After stunning the world last year--winning the pole at the Daytona 500 sans that much competition experience--Danica Patrick is back at the international speedway, looking to win it all at the Coke Zero 400 Sprint Cup in the Daytona International Speedway, which she "always liked."

In her second full season as a Sprint Cup Series driver, Fox Sports said, Patrick will be burning rubber on the racetrack Saturday night, looking to build on a string of impressive finishes as a rookie. And she's not leaving anything to chance as she'll be driving Stewart-Haas Racing Chassis 10-758, the same one underneath her for her pole run.

"It's the same chassis we won the pole with at Daytona last year so, hopefully, it has some of that speed," said the racer. "It's a good car and I like how it runs. We had the speed with it at Talladega but just couldn't do anything in the final laps."

While she shuffled back to eighth on the last lap of the Daytona 500, it was still a good result, the report added. She had previously ran well all afternoon, leading five laps. This was followed by a great run in last year's Coke Zero 400 at DIS, finishing at a respectable 14th.

She is looking for her third consecutive Top 20 finish for the first time this season, said the Bleacher Report. She comes with confidence and hope that she can get herself a Top 10 result, it added, and she can look to her eighth and 14th results at the track in the past season.

Patrick said she "always liked" going to the 2.5-mile, high-banked Daytona track, said Fox Sports. "It's where my first stock-car start was in 2010, and I actually have a lot of experience there." But there is a lot she needs to brace for.

Many things have changed from a year ago, observed the report. At Daytona, the qualifiers will be a knockout round for the first time in a Sprint Cup race here; and with the no-minimum-ride-height rule, the chassis setups are very different than they were.

The No. 10 SHR Chevrolet SS will be colored differently too, with the orange and pink colors of the Florida Lottery joining the traditional GoDaddy green. But no matter the color, Fox Sports noted, Patrick is optimistic that there will be speed in her car.

But there's the drafting that she is all too aware might be the ultimate game changer. "That's what's tough about restrictor-plate racing," Patrick said. 

"A lot of the time, it's out of your control. I remember asking Jimmie Johnson after he won the 2013 Daytona 500 what his plan was and he said there really wasn't any plan. It just sort of happens if you are in the right place. But, hopefully, we'll have a good car and a good plan and make it work."