Kimi Raikkonen had a “fun” time in his first NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session, now he wants to make another positive step.
Many pair of eyes have been on Raikkonen at Watkins Glen, the 2007 Formula 1 World Champion making his return to racing for the Go Bowling at The Glen event.
Raikkonen is competing with TrackHouse Racing via their ‘Project91’ initiative, which aims to open up a seat to international drivers to go racing over in the United States.
Raikkonen worked his way through practice without issue, and by the end of qualifying found himself “somewhere in the middle” of the pack, that being 27th.
No dramas for ‘The Iceman’ then on what was a “fun” day out on the track.
“Obviously I wish there had been more laps and it just felt like there was a lot of potential,” he told NBCUniversal at Watkins Glen, “but you know I’m not sure which line to take and just not enough laps to build everything together, but yeah it was fun.
“Quite a lot what I should have expected after the simulator, obviously there’s always a difference, but the fine details are never shown in a simulator, but at least I knew the track and tried to go.
“But I think I needed to be a bit more…some places I thought I was pretty okay, but it’s good, I didn’t expect anything and we are somewhere in the middle so it’s okay.”
Asked what he planned to do on Saturday night ahead of Sunday’s race, Raikkonen had not yet formulated anything, but will focus on making sure he knows all the rules to avoid any “silly mistakes”.
He also targets another positive step, like the one he made between practice and qualifying.
“I have no idea yet, too many things, too many options,” he said when asked what he will look at and his methods to prepare for the race, “but I think we’ve just got to make sure that we know more or less the rules and you know, not making any silly mistakes on that side hopefully, and then see what we can do with the car.
“We have a little bit of an idea from what we started and where we went and maybe somewhere halfway is better. So you know, we tried to improve from the first session to the qualifying and we tried to do the same in the race.”
Raikkonen would also be quizzed on his decision to head to NASCAR and risk possible “failure”. The Finn though does not see what he has to lose by contesting one NASCAR race, regardless of the outcome.
He also hopes that his appearance will open the door for more European drivers to get involved.
“I don’t see any risk. Why not?” he said, as per Motorsport.com. “What do I have to lose? That I‘ve done bad in a NASCAR race or bad in any race? I don’t care.
“I do it for myself. Good or bad result, it could happen even if I did 20 races. They all could be bad for many different reasons.
“I don’t see anything negative. I think it’s great. I’m sure there’s a lot of drivers that would like to have a chance and try, but it’s not very easy.
“So, maybe it opens some doors that in future there’s more chance to try to get more Europeans.”
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism