WATKINS GLEN, N.Y.: Formula One champion Kimi Räikkönen was enjoying a solid day in his NASCAR Cup Series debut at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International for Trackhouse Racing, but a Stage 3 accident regulated the driver of the Project 91 initiative to a disappointing 37th place finish.
Despite a short practice on Saturday in the Finger Lakes of New York, Räikkönen produced the 20th quickest lap in practice and followed it through with a competitive 27th place qualifying effort.
Early in the Go Bowling at The Glen, the race started in wet conditions after thunderstorms soaked the road course. The conditions played into Räikkönen hands at the start of the race but the course quickly dried out which sent the teams scrambling to switch to slick with Räikkönen performing flawlessly on pit road during a green flag pit stop.
During Stage 2, pit strategy propelled the No. 91 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE inside the top-10 and climbed to a race-high eighth before making his scheduled green flag pit stop.
The varying strategies of the team left Räikkönen 28th at the end of Stage 2, but he started inside the top-20 for the restart of Stage 3, but two laps into Stage 3, Räikkönen’s day ended in the inner loop when Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon tangled stacking the field which sent Räikkönen into the rear of Loris Hezemans’s car before ending up in tire barriers in Turn 5.
Räikkönen immediately dropped the window net giving the signal that he was okay and was later treated and released from the infield care center where he talked about the incident and his NASCAR Cup Series experience.
“I wasn’t really involved with it. I had a good line there, but everybody seemed to be coming on the left of me, and unfortunately I had no time to react,” he explained.
“The first impact, somebody hit the tires or the wheels directly, the wheels spun and something was wrong with the race car, but that how it goes.”
Despite exiting the race 46 laps from the finish, Räikkönen said the experience was “good fun.”
He added, “I felt more confidence all the time and had some good battles and yeah, it’s a shame. The car felt like it had a lot of speed in there but that’s how it goes sometimes.”
When asked if he would return to NASCAR again, Räikkönen would not rule anything out.
“We’ll see. I don’t know.”
On Saturday, Trackhouse Racing team co-owner Justin Marks expressed his vision about Project 91.
“This is the only event for PROJECT91 this year,” Marks said. “This is really our opportunity to sort of build this program; see how it impacts the operations of the company to field a part-time third car. I’ve been telling people; we haven’t hired one person for this project.
“There’s just been a lot of people at Trackhouse that have been doing time-and-a-half to get this to go. This is really just about what it looks like to field a part-time third car, as far as on the operations of the company, moving forward. This will be on the only event this year.”
Marks did express his vision to expand the program to more races in 2023.
“So, with that being said; ultimately PROJECT91 is a program that operates at all of the road courses during the season and then potentially some of the major events, like the Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600, or something like that.
“I think at some point, you get so many races that you have to look at just actually fielding a third full-time car. But I think for PROJECT 91, it’s a six to eight race program potentially next year and beyond.
“It’s a brand extension of Trackhouse. I think we can get really unique on the content side, on the merchandise side and just create great stories. That’s sort of where I’d like to see it go.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
