‘I’m sure we can figure it out,’ Former F1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen set to make his NASCAR Cup debut in Watkins as part of PROJECT91
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Kimi Raikkonen
The Pitbull and Justin Marks co-owned Trackhouse Racing team has been making waves in NASCAR this year as the two-year young team is the only outfit other than Hendrick Motorsports with a single driver securing more than one win in the Next-Gen car, thanks to Ross Chastain their No:1 Chevy Camaro ZL1 driver.
Recently Justin Marks announced his new project nick-named PROJECT91 to introduce the third team to the Cup Races with the main objective of hoping to “use a race vehicle with international technological relevance where world-class drivers from other disciplines can compete at NASCAR’s highest level without the steep learning curve,”.
Now the Trackhouse Racing team has announced that former Formula 1 champion with Ferrari, F1 legend, and one of the greats of the 21st century Kimi Raikkonen will be driving the car as part of PROJECT91. This will be the 2007 champions’ first motorsport race after he announced his retirement at the last race of the 2021 F1 seasons.
The champion will make his cup series debut at Watkins Glen International in August as the first international star to make an appearance part of PROJECT91. He will drive the No:91 Chevy with 23 times race winner and 2011 cup champion Darian Grubb as his crew chief . Though this isn’t the “Iceman’s” first NASCAR entry, as he has raced for Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2011 in both Xfinity and Truck series, Kimi will be part of their training program in their Concord, North Carolina race shop.
Find out what Kimi Raikkonen had to say about his NASCAR cup entry
Kimi Raikkonen acknowledged that he had more talks about how the outings going to work, where to make the debut …etc. and all of that made sense to him. He went on to say being just a one-race outing the outing made sense to his family as he had enjoyed his previous outings there. Kimi Raikkonen went on to say that they have hopes that the race would be a good outing for him and added that he hopes he can figure out the new car alongside the new track.
“We had more talks about it, how would it work, where the race would be, and all sorts of other things. There are a lot of things involved, and it all made sense to me. It’s one race, so it made sense for all of us as a family. I always enjoyed it when I had my few races [in the United States]. Hopefully, we have a good race and good fun. Obviously, it’s a new car and I’ve never been to the track. But I’m sure we can figure it out,” Kimi Raikkonen said.
Kimi Raikkonen went on to say that he finds it good to wait and race at Watkins as it gives them enough time to prepare and do works 100% right. He added that the No:91 team will try to put in all the efforts to win and enjoy the race. He went on to say that he has no future plans right now but will start from PROJECT91.
“I think it was better to wait until this race, so we can prepare for everything and at least have done the work 100% right what the outcome is, nobody knows. We’ll at least give ourselves the best chance that we can,” says Kimi Raikkonen.
“What comes after that? I don’t know, nobody knows. We’ll try to do a good race there and enjoy it, and see what the future brings. I have no other plans. That’s what I have right now, and we’ll go from there,” added Kimi Raikkonen.
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Justin P Joy
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