{"id":90026,"date":"2023-03-09T10:35:17","date_gmt":"2023-03-09T18:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=90026"},"modified":"2023-03-09T10:35:17","modified_gmt":"2023-03-09T18:35:17","slug":"raikkonen-returns-to-trackhouse-racings-project91-at-nascars-cota-cup-series-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/raikkonen-returns-to-trackhouse-racings-project91-at-nascars-cota-cup-series-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Raikkonen Returns to Trackhouse Racing’s PROJECT91 at NASCAR’s COTA Cup Series race"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Raikkonen, team owner Justin Marks, Daniel Suarez and Ross Chastain at Watkins Glen last year – photo courtesy Trackhouse Racing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trackhouse Racing\u2019s PROJECT91 will see 2007 Formula One champion Kimi Raikkonen racing for the team a second time, after debuting last year on the Watkins Glen International road course August 21st. This time the Finn will compete in PROJECT91\u2019s Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in NASCAR\u2019s Cup Series visit to Circuit of the Americas (COTA), slated for March 26th.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While Raikkonen was unfamiliar with Watkins Glen, never having raced there in F1, he has competed at COTA eight times, earning his most recent and 21st F1 victory on October 21, 2018, leading 39 laps on the 3.426-mile, 20-turn circuit that has hosted F1 since 2012.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had a fantastic time in NASCAR,\u201d Raikkonen confirmed. \u201cThere was a lot to learn in a very short amount of time, but everyone was very helpful, the competition was a big challenge. This time I get to race on a track I am familiar with, so there won\u2019t be as steep of a learning curve. I want to have fun, but also do as well as we can,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fun seems to be the launch word for Trackhouse Racing, a division of Trackhouse Entertainment Group, fielding the No. 1 Chevy for Ross Chastain and the No. 99 with Daniel Suarez, who have both brought the young team victories in NASCAR\u2019s top tier Cup Series.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Team owner Justin Marks, who is also a racer and competed last week at St Petersburg in the SRO series, created PROJECT91 last year with the intent of expanding his organization\u2019s global reach by fielding a Cup Series entry for renowned international racing drivers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we announced Kimi last year, I said he was the global superstar I had in mind when we created PROJECT91,\u201d Marks explained. \u201cI think you saw the fan reception across the world and Kimi\u2019s performance in the car was proof of the concept. Kimi\u2019s following is massive and it\u2019s great for NASCAR and for Trackhouse – plus I think Kimi really enjoys our racing!\u201d Marks hasn’t indicated another stellar international driver who might compete in the No. 91, but Sebastien Vettel comes to mind.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Raikkonen had a good run at Watkins Glen last August – Trackhouse Racing photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Raikkonen will pilot the No. 91 Onx\/iLOQ Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 at COTA. He\u2019ll have the benefit of 23-time winning crew chief Darian Grubb calling the shots; Grubb helped Tony Stewart to his 2011 NASCAR Cup Series championship. The Finn\u2019s backers for this excursion at COTA, Onx\u2019s X+ construction system is fully-integrated that merges high-end design and leading technology. The company sponsored Chastain’s winning car at COTA in 2022 and also supported Suarez\u2019s victory in Sonoma last June. iLOQ is a Finnish pioneer of smart and mobile locking systems.<\/p>\n

Before he raced with Trackhouse in 2022, Raikkonen, of Espoo, Finland, visited the team\u2019s Concord, North Carolina race shop and tested with the team at Virginia International Raceway. During the Watkins Glen race, he qualified 27th, raced in the top-10 for most of the afternoon before a late race accident – caused by another driver – ended his day.<\/p>\n

Marks said Raikkonen will, once again, visit the shop in the days before the Austin, Texas event, but no test sessions are scheduled before that race. \u201cI\u2019m sure there are a lot of drivers that would like to have a chance to try NASCAR,\u201d Raikkonen said. \u201cIt\u2019s not very easy, so maybe it will open some doors in the future for more chances to try and get more Europeans into the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raikkonen retired from Formula One in 2021. During a career that began in 2001, he raced with Sauber, McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus and Alfa Romeo. His F1 highlight came in the 2007 season season, when he secured the F1 World Driving title for Scuderia Ferrari. Raikkonen has previous driving experience in NASCAR, having competed in May 2011 Xfinity and Truck Series races on the Charlotte Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

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Trackhouse Racing\u2019s PROJECT91 will see 2007 Formula One champion Kimi Raikkonen racing for the team a second time, after debuting last year on the Watkins Glen International road course August 21st.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":90027,"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":[3470,5029],"tags":[7597,3105,3752,9075,127,4437,6209,9198],"class_list":["post-90026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-racing","tag-circuit-of-the-americas","tag-daniel-suarez","tag-formula-one","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-ross-chastain","tag-trackhouse-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Kimi-Justin-Daniel-Ross-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-nq2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90026","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=90026"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90092,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90026\/revisions\/90092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}