In February 2013, Danica Patrick made history by becoming the first woman to win the pole position for the Daytona 500. Reporters swarmed the garage fishing for reactions from other drivers, and when they reached Brad Keselowski, the reigning Cup Series champion, he gave them exactly that. “I don’t think about Danica as a female race-car driver,” he says. “I think of her as a rookie and someone that hasn’t won races or proved that she is competitive.” The kind of response that gets clipped and circulated. Now years later, he has another hot take about Danica Patrick.

So a video was shared on X from the 2005 Indianapolis 500 qualifying that showed Patrick entering the session as the favorite to win pole position. However, she had to make a spectacular save on the opening lap of her qualifying attempt after a huge wiggle entering the corner cost her crucial speed and ultimately dropped her to fourth on the grid. Brad Keselowski saw the clip, and he had some thoughts.

“IMO @DanicaPatrick was by a large margin the best female race car driver of all time. It’s an absolute shame she doesn’t get more credit or recognition from the racing community,” he posted on X on May 16. And the timing of this statement made by him is not lost on anyone. 

Just days before he posted, FOX Sports had confirmed that Patrick would be leading the coverage of the 2026 Indianapolis 500 qualifying, and the reaction from fans was not kind. All this came after Patrick had quietly dropped from the Sky Sports Formula 1 lineup ahead of the season, after years of F1 fans questioning why someone who never raced in the series was being asked to analyse it. Even then Brad Keselowski has come out to support her, because well…he is just being him. But, to truly understand why the 2005 clip could trigger this claim, you have to look at what that rookie season actually meant for Patrick.

Patrick tied the IndyCar rookie record with three pole positions, led 19 laps at the Indy 500, finished fourth, and won rookie of the year, all in her debut! Sure, now she might be the talk of a reptilian conspiracy, but that season was her highlight. But this is not even half the picture.

The ABC broadcast of that race drew a 6.6 overnight rating, up by 40% from the year before and the highest jump since 1996. The real kicker was Patrick was not even the race winner; it was Dan Wheldon, but even then she ended up being on the cover of Sports Illustrated the following week. And she even surpassed the legendary Jeff Gordon in a way.

It turns out that she was googled two and a half times more than Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., or Jimmie Johnson had been in any month since 2004. And as far as Brad Keselowski goes, this is not the first time he has stood up for her, believe it or not.

Back in September 2017, when the news of Patrick losing her seat at Stewart Haas Racing came out, Keselowski went straight to X and said, “She will go down as the best female NASCAR driver of all time.” Then came something deeper: “Have come to accept that mankind never knows or appreciates what it has until it’s gone. NASCAR fans will miss her badly in time.”

A few months before that, in July of 2017, a follower had tried to needle him by saying that Patrick could beat him in an MMA fight. It was the same old “fight like a girl” trope, but Keselowski didn’t fall for the bait; he had a fitting reply.

“I think @DanicaPatrick could take a lot of people down in the decagon. “She’s one of the best female athletes of all time,” he fired back. Patrick saw it and responded with characteristic brevity: “You all are making me blush. Thanks.”

When it comes to Brad Keselowski, there is no doubt that what he thinks is what he says. This is the same man who called NASCAR’s current playoff format outright broken. “The entire playoff system needs to go,” he said. Or the time when he looked at the Next Gen car and essentially called it an “old pickup truck.” So it’s not surprising that he would talk about what he believed in. And him coming out to support Danica Patrick, well, her resume does support it.

continues to have one of the best resumes of any male driver in the history of modern American racing. She holds the records for the most starts (191), laps led (64), and top-10 finishes (7) by a female driver in Cup Series history.

Patrick is also the first woman to win an IndyCar Series race, which she achieved at the 2008 Indy Japan 300, and the first woman to win a pole position in the NASCAR Cup Series. Moreover, she owns the highest finish ever by a woman in both the Indy 500, where she finished third in 2009, and the Daytona 500, where she placed eighth in 2013. That led Keselowski to weigh in publicly on the post. However, this take is not something that fans are agreeing upon.

Fans point out drivers who were better than Danica Patrick

On X, one fan brought up Sara Christian and Janet Guthrie, asking Keselowski to “look them up”.

Christian was one of NASCAR’s original female pioneers, competing in the sport’s earliest years during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Meanwhile, Janet Guthrie became a groundbreaking figure in both NASCAR and IndyCar during the 1970s, famously becoming the first woman to qualify for both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500, which she competed in during 1977.

But these two weren’t the only names that the community had in mind, with another fan bringing up Michele Mouton, one of the greatest rally drivers in motorsports. She won four races during the brutal Group B era of the World Rally Championship and finished runner-up in the 1982 WRC standings.

Others pointed toward drag racing royalty instead. “What the hell are Courtney and Brittany Force, then Brad?”

Courtney and Brittany have both dominated NHRA competition. Brittany, especially, has built one of the strongest résumés in drag racing history, becoming a multi-time NHRA Top Fuel champion while routinely setting speed records. She currently holds the NHRA speed record with a run of 343.51 mph, which she achieved at a Top Fuel run at zMAX Dragway in 2022.

These were some names that they felt deserved the GOAT tag ahead of Patrick. A lot of the criticism thrown Patrick’s way in recent years has also been tied to her broadcasting work, with many F1 viewers in particular calling for her to be removed. Fans often criticized her analysis as inconsistent, while also pointing out her lack of experience in the category.

But under Keselowski’s post, fans were scrutinizing her purely from a racing perspective, especially her NASCAR career.

“Uhhh, Brad….She was atrocious in a stock car, and she had the worst ‘not my fault’ attitude of all time,” one user wrote.

The criticism stems largely from Patrick’s Cup Series numbers. Across 191 NASCAR Cup races, she never won, with a best championship finish of 24th. Moreover, throughout her career, some fans and competitors felt she often struggled to accept blame after incidents, frequently pointing toward other drivers, bad luck, or car issues rather than acknowledging her own mistakes behind the wheel.

Another harsh response read, “If that’s your example for the best, women in auto racing are scre—.”

And that pretty much summed up the larger debate. For some fans, Patrick’s popularity and groundbreaking moments outweigh the statistics. One fan did defend her, writing, “Danica is shamed bc of the current female drivers & NASCAR’s social push that attracts reality-TV fans who favor ‘breaking barriers’ over racing… this toxic crowd shames Danica to make these current female drivers seem more groundbreaking…”

For others, pure results still place several female racers ahead of her when it comes to legacy.