Could Danica Patrick land at Roush Fenway Racing with boyfriend Ricky Stenhouse Jr.?

Danica Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. have been a couple for a while, but could they soon be teammates as well?

As we get ever closer to both the end of the 2017 NASCAR season and its associated Silly Season, some of the dominoes one would expect to have fallen are still standing tall. Notable names like Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch still have uncertain near futures, and Danica Patrick is on that list as well.

Here’s what we know so far. Patrick won’t be back with Stewart-Haas Racing in 2018, but she’d like to continue driving in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. There are some possible open seats for her, but one potential landing spot that hasn’t been talked about much would team her with her boyfriend, Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

One reason Roush Fenway Racing hasn’t come up much is because there isn’t really a vacancy there. Stenhouse’s teammate, Trevor Bayne, is said to be signed through 2019. He’s also a former Daytona 500 winner and has been moderately successful, so it doesn’t make sense RFR would jettison him for Patrick.

But as Kickin’ the Tires notes, Roush Fenway has three charters, one of which was leased to the No. 37 JTG Daugherty Racing team and will return to RFR for 2018. NASCAR rules mean that the organization can shift things around and lease one of its other charters or even sell it if it wants to remain a two-car team. It doesn’t have to, though, which is why adding Patrick is a possibility.

Kickin’ the Tires even asked Patrick straight up about whether it could happen, and she didn’t exactly say no.

"“Ha, ha, you never know, I mean, you know, I think that, I think that what’s most important is that you find a spot where you’ve got, you know, you’ve got that potential and you’ve got a group that has passion.”"

The big question, as it almost always is, would be sponsorship. Roush Fenway hasn’t exactly been overflowing with sponsors as it is, shutting down the XFINITY Series car driven by Bubba Wallace partway through the 2017 season. Patrick was once a sponsor darling, but her ability to bring in the bucks has waned greatly over the past few years.

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Still, you could argue that she’d be an upgrade in marketability over Stenhouse and Bayne. She’s also been dating Stenhouse for some time, so you’d have to imagine they would at least be able to work well together and communicate in ways that other new teammates take time to develop.

Even if Patrick and Roush Fenway don’t turn out to be the right fit, this latest rumor makes it clear that there might be more potential ways for her to continue her Cup Series career than the obvious ones. She doesn’t want to call it quits yet, and as it turns out, she might not only get to keep racing but do it right alongside Stenhouse. As Larry David might say, pretty, pretty, pretty good.