Danica Patrick is returning to TV screens, but not on the Sky Sports team for the 2026 season. Instead, she has joined IndyCar's Indy 500 coverage and will appear in Fox Sports' pre-race show on Sunday May 24, giving one of the race's best-known former drivers a fresh spot on a big motorsport weekend.
The move puts Patrick back in front of viewers after she was left out of the Sky Sports lineup for 2026 and will not appear at any race weekends for the network this season. Fox Sports has confirmed her role for the Indianapolis 500 build-up, keeping her visible around the event where she made some of her biggest racing memories.
Patrick's name still carries weight at Indianapolis. She finished third in the 2009 Indy 500, the best result by a woman in the race, and she was already part of the event's history years earlier when she became the fourth woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 in 2005. In that first season in IndyCar, she also led during the race and finished fourth, while taking Rookie of the Year honours.
Her rise continued after she joined Andretti Green Racing in 2007. A year later, she won the Indy Japan 300, becoming the first woman to win an IndyCar race. She also finished sixth in the drivers' championship in 2008 and posted 10 top-10 finishes that season, a run that underlined how quickly she had moved from a breakthrough entrant to a genuine front-running driver.
Patrick's record is not limited to IndyCar. She later won pole position at the 2013 Daytona 500 and finished eighth in the race, before retiring from full-time racing in 2018 at the age of 36. That mix of open-wheel success and stock-car visibility has made her one of the most recognizable figures in American motorsport, and one reason her TV appearances still draw attention.
The timing matters because the Indianapolis 500 is one of the biggest dates on the racing calendar and Patrick's return lands on the day fans are most focused on the event itself. She had previously appeared at various F1 race weekends in the US last season and provided commentary and insight for Sky Sports across multiple race weekends over the past few years, mainly during race weekends in the Americas. Now, after being left off that 2026 Sky Sports team, her next on-air appearance is tied to the race that helped define her career.
For Patrick, the pre-race role also reconnects her with the place where she built her reputation. The question now is not whether she belongs in the conversation around the Indy 500; it is how much Fox Sports will lean on a driver whose history at Indianapolis still gives her instant authority with viewers.
