After eight months of retirement in Switzerland with his family, the Finn returns to asphalt at Watkins Glen. Kimi Raikkonen retired to his beloved Switzerland at the end of last year’s Formula 1 season and has enjoyed the last eight months of his young family. “Not really,” said the 2007 F1 champion, but here he is, less than a year after his retirement, and Raikkonen will race again.
It will be Sunday at Watkins Glen International in upstate New York for a NASCAR test. Known as ‘The Iceman’ for his unintentionally amusing demeanor (cold, no fuss), the driver was coaxed back behind the wheel by TrackHouse Racing and its ambitious Project91 programme.
Project91 was created to raise the profile of NASCAR around the world with the best drivers from other categories. First on the list was Raikkonen, who had already competed in one Xfinity Series and one Truck Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway during one weekend in 2011, the season Raikkonen took a year off from his job. 19-year career in F1, according to the Mundo Deportivo portal.
Raikkonen, 42, follows NASCAR and has been interested in the stock car series for more than a decade. He had hoped to also run a Cup Series race in 2011, but that never happened and he returned to F1, where he claimed the last three of his 21 career wins in the following decade. “It’s still a learning phase for all the teams with the new car.” This project was announced in May, long before TrackHouse was officially considered a good championship-ranked team.
“The only thing we can do is try our best and hope to get a good result. You never know, in whatever category or race you choose, you never know what is going to happen. So I trusted what he said and they have done quite well. In NASCAR, it can happen easily.” Raikkonen said he has had several offers to race in the last eight months, but Marks’s is the only “so far I’ve said yes to”.
