Swapping Danica Patrick for was always going to be a step up for Stewart-Haas Racing, but few — including the team or even Almirola himself — could’ve anticipated something like this. In February, Almirola strapped into SHR’s No. 10, a car that had seen diminishing returns since its inception, with Patrick landing no top fives and just seven top 10s in a five-year full-time tenure with the organization. The car seemed like the stepchild of SHR, the also-ran, the team that kept a lot of talented crew members employed but was never going to be a threat for the win each week. 10 team receiving lesser equipment than, say, championship-contending efforts like the No.
4 and Kevin Harvick? It wasn’t like there was someone else to which one could compare Patrick’s tenure, not until Almirola came along. It could just be the car. Then he nearly won the Daytona 500. Which could have, to be fair, been the highlight of his year. It was pretty much Austin Dillon’s, after all. Superspeedways have often been the great equalizer for NASCAR’s national series; hell, Patrick herself had some of her best runs there.
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Almirola leading at the white flag only to be punted by Dillon on the backstretch could have played out with just about any driver in the 40-car field. Instead, that was far from Almirola’s high point of the season. Over the next few weeks, he was either in or around the top 10 at race’s end, save for a race-ending crash at Texas Motor Speedway that relegated him to 32nd. At the very least, Almirola proved early on that there was more in the No. 10 than Patrick was able to coax out — but again, this was expected. And it also came at a time when teammate Harvick had won three of the first four races of the season.
So, yes, good, but it was clear improvements could be made. What ended up occurring was easily the most pleasant surprise of the 2018 season. After the checkered flag flew at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Almirola was fifth in the overall standings, having made the Cup playoffs by virtue of his points finish, not a regular season win. He scored career bests in a majority of major statistic categories, including top fives (four), top 10s (17), laps led (181), average finish (12.8) and lead-lap finishes (27).
He also won his first race in four years, coming out on top in the fall visit to Talladega Superspeedway. How would that not be an example of exceeding expectations? Unless you were expecting Almirola to suddenly vault the No.