{"id":85927,"date":"2022-05-27T08:52:17","date_gmt":"2022-05-27T15:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=85927"},"modified":"2022-05-27T08:52:17","modified_gmt":"2022-05-27T15:52:17","slug":"raikkonen-heads-to-nascar-cup-series-at-watkins-glen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/raikkonen-heads-to-nascar-cup-series-at-watkins-glen\/","title":{"rendered":"Raikkonen Heads to NASCAR Cup Series at Watkins Glen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Raikkonen<\/a><\/p>\n

A few days ago, TrackHouse Entertainment Group announced a third NASCAR Cup Series TrackHouse Racing car would be allocated to an international driver at a NASCAR track during the 2022 season. On Thursday, May 26 the first driver was announced and it\u2019s 2007 Formula One World Champion Kimi Raikkonen. TrackHouse\u2019s PROJECT91 program allows the Finn to compete in the No. 91 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 on the road course at Watkins Glen International on August 21st.<\/p>\n

Raikkonen is the first driver to join the team\u2019s PROJECT91, whose goal is to expand the organization\u2019s international reach by fielding a NASCAR Cup Series entry for renowned international racers. Raikkonen joins TrackHouse Racing\u2019s regular-season racers No. 99 Camaro fielded for Daniel Suarez and the No. 1 of two-time 2022 winner Ross Chastain.<\/p>\n

\u201cKimi Raikkonen is the driver I first had in mind when we created PROJECT91,\u201d said team principal Justin Marks, who has won races as a driver, including the 2009 GT class in the Rolex 24 at Daytona and NASCAR\u2019s Xfinity Series at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with Chip Ganassi Racing. \u201cKimi is a world-renowned driver with a tremendous amount of talent and fan following. We have had long discussions and, like us, he is already hard at work preparing for Watkins Glen,\u201d where he\u2019s never competed before now.<\/p>\n

Darian Grubb, who has won 23 Cup races and was the 2011 Cup Series champion crew chief with Tony Stewart, will lead Raikkonen\u2019s team; PROJECT91 intends to bring their new driver to the team\u2019s race shop in Concord, North Carolina for preparations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t looking to race again, but Justin came two my home in Switzerland and convinced me how serious he was about putting together a top-notch program,\u201d the driver said. \u201cThis will be fun, but it\u2019s something I will take very seriously. I know how competitive the NASCAR Cup Series is and it will be a big challenge,\u201d he understands.<\/p>\n

Raikkonen, whose 21-year F1 competition began in 2001 and has included driving positions with Sauber, McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus and, most recently Alfa Romeo, retired from Formula One following the 2021 season. He won the World Championship with Ferrari in 2007, recording 21 race victories throughout his stellar F1 career, together with 103 podium appearances.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the native of Espoo, Finland\u2019s first NASCAR venture. He competed in the Xfinity and Truck Series races at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May of 2011. Marks said Raikkonen\u2019s Watkins Glen entry is, to date, the sole PROJECT91 race planned for 2022. He expects to engage other stellar international drivers for the 2023 campaign.<\/p>\n

Marks announced the formation of PROJECT91 on May 24th without giving away the name of its initial driver. \u201cPROJECT91\u2019s mission is to activate the intersection point of NASCAR racing and global motorsport culture,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cI truly believe the Next Gen car represents an opportunity for NASCAR to enter the global professional motorsport conversation. We now have a race vehicle with international technological relevance, where world-class drivers from other disciplines can compete at NASCAR\u2019s highest level without the steep learning curve that the previous generation cars required.\u201d TrackHouse Racing has secured two Cup victories so far in the 2022 season with Chastain at the wheel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2007 Formula One World Champion Kimi Raikkonen will drive the third NASCAR Cup Series TrackHouse Racing car on the Watkins Glenroad course as part of PROJECT91 on August 21st.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":85928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470,5029],"tags":[9075,127,8510,4766],"class_list":["post-85927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","category-racing","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-nascar","tag-trackhouse","tag-watkins-glen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/TH-Kimi-1920x1080-2-1-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-mlV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85927"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85929,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85927\/revisions\/85929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}