Danica Patrick will join the Sky Sports broadcast team for next weekend’s United States Grand Prix.

The former IndyCar and NASCAR driver — the most successful female driver in American open-wheel history — retired from competition in 2018 but has worked on NBC’s coverage of the Indy 500, among other events, and will be a pundit at her first F1 race in Austin. Patrick will be part of the Sky Sports coverage that is broadcast by ESPN in the U.S.

“For me, speaking to Americans who are becoming more and more interested in Formula 1 — especially through the Netflix Drive to Survive series — I will have that ability to pull analogies and stories from our culture here and the things that we do and watch, and shows and sports, and be able to get people to understand more about racing,” Patrick told RACER.

“Because I think in general, the thing is they don’t know what racing is all about. They don’t understand it, it looks easy, there’s not a lot of connection with the drivers because they don’t even know what they look like. So it’s about bridging that gap between cars going round and what it’s really like, who’s doing it, what the risks are, what the challenges are, what’s on the line…

“So, I think that I’ll be able to bridge that gap a little bit more domestically for people who are perhaps newly-interested in Formula 1.

“But mind you, we have some Formula 1 fans in the States, a lot of them that are super-passionate and who know more about Formula 1 than I do! Because they’re passionate, right? But then the newer ones who are kind of interested that might be watching for the first time because it’s on at noon instead of 8am or 7am, it’s a good opportunity to pull them in and get them interested and maybe they’ll understand more about it after listening.”

Next weekend’s race in Austin will be carried live on ABC for the first time since 2019.