Kimi Raikkonen shares a light moment with Haas F1 boss Guenther Steiner ahead of his NASCAR return at COTA

Former F1 driver and world champion Kimi Raikkonen will compete in the 39-car field for his NASCAR cameo on Sunday (March 26)’s Cup Series race on the Austin Road Course at the Circuit of the Americas.

The Finn, who retired from F1 at the end of the 2021 season, has continued racing and even had a one-off race at Watkins Glen last season. Raikkonen will return to NASCAR with Trackhouse racing and was seen chatting with Haas F1 team principal Guenther Steiner ahead of his qualifying.

Steiner and Raikkonen were seen having a quick conversation before the former Ferrari driver hit the track. When Steiner asked if Kimi Raikkonen was feeling stressed, 'The Iceman' gave his typical response.

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Kimi Raikkonen out-qualifies former F1 world champion in his NASCAR return

Kimi Raikkonen will start the race in COTA on his NASCAR return down in 22nd position. However, he was able to outqualify former F1 world champion and McLaren driver Jenson Button by a mere difference of 0.033s, which meant that the Brit will start from P24.

Raikkonen’s average speed of 92.631mph was also just a fraction higher than Button’s 92.608.

As per The Race, Button said:

“It’s definitely worlds away from the racing that I’ve been used to in the past, but it’s so much fun. I’m enjoying the experience and the learning curve because there’s a lot of that – these cars are heavy."

“But also the process and everything, over the race weekend, it’s just so different. I’ve never not had a pit [speed] limiter before so it’s little things like that you don’t think about. I’m not just running this race, so I get time to get experience behind the wheel of this heavy machine.”

He added:

“Kevin [Harvick] has obviously raced a lot everywhere and in everything in NASCAR. He didn’t have such a good run today in qualifying but the race – as he knows – is very different from qualifying."

“You can’t go all-out in the race because you burn the tires up pretty quickly. I’m looking forward to it, it’s going to be a real challenge. Three and a half hours tomorrow, I’m going to learn a lot.”

It was quite fascinating to see both Kimi Raikkonen and Jenson Button competing in a different series against each other after their time in Formula 1. It will be interesting to see which of the two world champions comes out on top in the race.