Roush Fenway Racing President denies Danica Patrick rumors

If and when Danica Patrick finds a ride for 2018, it apparently won’t be as a teammate to boyfriend Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

With Danica Patrick still searching for a place to call her Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series home for next year, a dark horse contender seemed to emerge in the form of Roush Fenway Racing. That would have created a situation unique in all of professional sports with teammates who are also a couple, as Patrick and current RFR driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. have been dating for some time.

Alas, it seems they won’t have to worry about how to balance business and pleasure after all. ESPN’s Bob Pockrass asked Roush Fenway President Steve Newmark about the Patrick rumors this weekend during the run-up to the AAA Texas 500.

He shot them down in fairly uncertain terms.

Newmark is telling the truth because both Stenhouse and Trevor Bayne are thought to be under contract for next season and Roush Fenway is currently a two-car team. Yet the door would still seem to be cracked just a tiny bit for 2018 simply because the organization owns a third charter — currently being leased by JTG Daugherty Racing — that it will get back next season.

However, using it for Patrick would obviously mean expanding from two to three cars, and that seems unlikely to happen in the current NASCAR climate where sponsors are hard to come by even for championship-caliber teams. That’s especially true since the end of Patrick’s tenure with her current team, Stewart-Haas Racing, came about in large part due to her inability to attract sponsor dollars at this point in her career.

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So unless RFR decides to part ways with Bayne for some reason or changes its mind about going with three cars in the Cup Series, Newmark’s remarks can be taken at face value. Silly Season isn’t quite over, so Patrick might still have options, but joining Stenhouse and racing alongside him doesn’t appear to be one of them.