Nascar Nationwide, Top Gear 300 a Charlotte conferenza stampa–26/05/2011

Kimi Raikkonen NASCAR’s Venture Turns To Nationwide Series At Charlotte

Former Formula One champion Kimi Raikkonen said he will indeed race in Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Charlotte Motor Speedway – and left the door open for a Sprint Cup start at Sonoma next month.

Raikkonen, the "Ice Man" whose cool demeanor matches his nickname, said he’s still undecided on his NASCAR future after making one Truck Series start last week and the impending Nationwide start for NEMCO Motorsports on Saturday.

Wearing a backwards Red Bull hat, a black Perky Jerky T-shirt and shorts, Raikkonen acknowledged he’s thinking about running a road-course race in the Cup Series – but hasn’t decided for sure.

"It would be nice to go and do (Sonoma), but I don’t know if it’s going to happen or not," he said. "We’ll see what happens this weekend. I have to go back and do my Rally (car) stuff and we’ll see."

Raikkonen said he’s yet to drive a Nationwide car – today is the first time – but feels somewhat confident because "at least I know the circuit and how the weekend goes."

In talking with other drivers, he said, he was told there was "not an awful difference" between Trucks and Nationwide cars.

He does have 20 laps of experience in a Cup car – but not on an oval.

Raikkonen said his test last week – driving a Robby Gordon Motorsports car at the Virginia International Raceway road course – wasn’t all that helpful. Before he got a chance to run many laps, he took one turn too wide and tried to run through the grass.

"I went out and just ran a bit wide and I decided to go in the grass, but unfortunately there was a big hole in the grass and it destroyed the front a bit," he said.

Still, that wasn’t enough to dissuade him from driving in Nationwide this weekend after reports said he was unsure about it earlier in the week.

"The Nationwide, we are here, so what’s the most easiest thing to get more experience?" he said. "It was the easiest thing for me to do."

Da sbnation.com

---

Raikkonen keen on road Cup race

Kimi Raikkonen says he wants to run a Sprint Cup series race at a road course, having tested Robby Gordon’s Cup car last Tuesday at Virginia International Raceway.

The 2007 F1 world champion said he ran few laps in Gordon’s car but his test was hampered by en early off that damaged the nose of the car and then rain in the afternoon.

Despite his short experience, The Finn said he enjoyed the test, which came just a few days after his NASCAR debut in the Truck series at Charlotte, where he finished 15th.

"We had few issues in the test with the Cup car," said Raikkonen at Charlotte on Thursday. "We didn’t do an awful lot of running in the morning and then in the afternoon we knew it was going to start raining. So I went out and just ran a bit wide and decided to go over the grass but there was a big hole or something in the grass so it destroyed the front a bit and then it started to rain anyhow.

"It was fun to drive it, the road course with that car."

Raikkonen was non-committal when asked if he will be running a Sprint Cup series race soon, but said he wants to try it while showing a preference for doing so at a road course.

On June 26 NASCAR’s top series competes at Infineon Raceway in Sears Point, California, a date that doesn’t clash with his World Rally Championship schedule, making it a likely choice for the Finn.

"Of course we have all this in mind, try to do it," said Raikkonen. "The other thing is it going to happen or not, I don’t know.

"Of course I’m probably more keen to do those road courses than anything else.

"I’ll leave Saturday as soon as the race is over back to Europe. I have other things to do there, so after that I don’t know when I will be back but I after that I have a rally in Greece and then some other rallies at least before I’ll be back."

Kyle Busch, who is fielding a car though NEMCO Motorsports for Raikkonen this weekend in the Finn’s Nationwide Series debut at Charlotte, had initially spoken about running him in about three to five Truck series events.

However, he said Thursday that as of now, no further outings are planned, while joint plans for his Cup debut have not been discussed.

"We appreciate the guys from Kyle Busch Motorsports doing the building of the car and then for NEMCO Motorsports and them working on it here this week – along with us just trying to help them out in case there’s any bugs," said Busch.

"As far as the Sonoma race, we’ve had no discussions about Cup stuff at all. As far as I know, just this weekend is the last hoorah with Kimi unless he comes back and wants to do further races in NASCAR."

Busch added that there have been changes on his initial deal with Raikkonen.

"What’s changed is the payment schedule," Busch said. "The contract states that we’re supposed to receive so much and we have not. We’ve only received enough for these two races.

"It’s either up to Kimi [Raikkonen] or up to the financial people that run Kimi’s business side of things and decide that they need to find the sponsorship funds in order to carry the experience for him further."

Da Autosport.com