{"id":87080,"date":"2022-08-23T16:58:36","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T23:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=87080"},"modified":"2022-08-23T16:58:36","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T23:58:36","slug":"raikkonens-1st-nascar-cup-series-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/raikkonens-1st-nascar-cup-series-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Raikkonen’s 1st NASCAR Cup Series Race"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Raikkonen's
Raikkonen’s smile is enduring. Photo: NASCAR via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Former Formula One 2007 champion Kimi Raikkonen, the monosyllabic Finnish racer whose talents behind the wheel have never been debated, had a less-than-satisfactory debut in NASCAR\u2019s Cup Series competition this past weekend.<\/p>\n

Racing in the 2022 Go Bowling at the Glen Cup Series race on the Watkins Glen International road course, the penultimate Cup Series race before playoffs begin, Raikkonen had little practice, one qualifying attempt, used his racing in the rain wiles but was stopped by a crash around the halfway mark of this 90-lap contest, completed with Hendrick Motorsports\u2019 surging Kyle Larson in Victory Lane.<\/p>\n

Raikkonen had all of 20 minutes to learn the track and No. 91 car in practice, ten laps to qualify and then had to deal with weather oscillations in an unfamiliar car with unfamiliar competition surrounding him. At least he had knowledge of the race track!<\/p>\n

\"Raikkonen
Raikkonen out front. Photo: NASCAR via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After qualifying, the Finn said he\u2019d wished for more laps to practice. \u201cI felt like there was a lot of potential but I\u2019m just not sure which lines to take, and there weren\u2019t enough laps to put everything together,\u201d he said on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Raikkonen qualified 27th in the 39-car field and ran as high as eighth in the second of three stages. He had his first experience using Goodyear rain tires on his Chevrolet Camaro before switching to dry rubber on the 12th lap of the race\u2019s first stage, where he finished 19th. He started the second stage in 10th and stayed in that rarified group before pitting in the second stage\u2019s last laps.<\/p>\n

Restarting in 22nd to start the third and final stage of Sunday\u2019s race, Raikkonen\u2019s No. 91 Trackhouse Chevy was pushed into the barrier by both his teammate Ross Chastain\u2019s No. 1 Camaro and by Richard Childress Racing\u2019s Austin Dillon\u2019s No. 3 Camaro. He suffered contact as cars spun, slowed and the 21-time F1 winner couldn\u2019t avoid the No. 27 Ford Mustang of Loris Hezemans, sending him into the outside tire barrier of the inner loop at Watkins Glen International.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a good line there but everybody seemed to come to the left, unfortunately,\u201d Raikkonen said. \u201cI had no time to react. The first impact, somebody hit the tire or the wheel and the wheel spun and something\u2019s wrong with the wrist, but that\u2019s how it goes,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Trackhouse Racing\u2019s PROJECT91, meant to introduce international drivers to NASCAR, allowed Raikkonen the opportunity to sample NASCAR\u2019s Cup Series for the first time. He has raced in NASCAR\u2019s two other national touring series, the Truck Series and Xfinity Series for Kyle Busch Racing in 2011, both of those being one-off entries.<\/p>\n

\"Raikkonen
Raikkonen spent plenty of time in the top 10 Photo: NASCAR via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While unable to complete the 90-lap event, the driver was pleased to be able to compete at a high level in a new type of competition, now that he\u2019s retired from F1. He was able to learn quite a bit, despite being sidelined early in the third stage of the race.<\/p>\n

What did he like? \u201cI think, everything. Everything is new and I got the full service with the rain and everything\u2026 \u201c he said. While he wasn\u2019t able to finish, Raikkonen learned about the pit stops and tire life. \u201cI felt that we had very good speed and, especially after the pit stops, but maybe I was a bit too harsh on the tires on the one of the sets,\u201d he mused.<\/p>\n

Crew chief Darian Grubb was pleased with his new driver. \u201cHe was learning every lap. You could see how he was racing those guys, how he was able to learn their styles, where they were fast, where they were slow. And he was able to maintain really well with them, so he\u2019s obviously a very quick study,\u201d Grubb said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe worked so hard trying to get ready for this. It\u2019s really disappointing to end that way. The way the strategy scenario was working, I think he was gonna have a good chance to go race hard with guys. I think we had a good shot to be up in the top 10, which is what our goals were for the weekend,\u201d Grubb concluded.<\/p>\n

Raikkonen felt it was \u201cgood fun. I felt more confident all of the time. We had some good laps. It\u2019s a shame. The car felt like it had a lot of speed, but that\u2019s how it goes sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Formula One 2007 champion Kimi Raikkonen, the monosyllabic Finnish racer whose talents behind the wheel have never been debated, had a less-than-satisfactory debut in NASCAR\u2019s Cup Series competition this past weekend.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":87082,"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":[17,3424,3470,5029,22],"tags":[9075,127,1632,9212],"class_list":["post-87080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-column","category-nascar","category-news","category-racing","category-event-coverage","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-nascar","tag-racing","tag-raikkonen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Raikkonens-smile-is-enduring-min-e1661298628775.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-mEw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87080","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=87080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87084,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87080\/revisions\/87084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}