Robby Gordon: Räikkönen will drive Sprint Cup!

NASCAR driver Robby Gordon confirmed recently to ESPN that Kimi Räikkönen trashed his number one car during a testing period on May. Gordon was supposed to drive it next weekend at Infineon Raceway, in Sonoma.

Should Räikkönen not have wrecked the car, it would have been likely that he would have raced in the Sonoma Sprint Cup GP himself.

Gordon also said that the car Räikkönen wrecked has been at the shop the last few weeks.

Räikkönen still wants to race in NASCAR, and Gordon presumes that this will happen at Watkins Glen on August 13, at the very latest.

Source: RacingNewsFlash
Courtesy: luieluv

Deal falls through for Kimi Räikkönen to drive for Robby Gordon at Infineon Raceway

Robby Gordon won’t have open-wheel star Kimi Räikkönen driving one of his cars next week at Infineon Raceway, just another twist in what has been a strange season for his race team.

Gordon will race this weekend at Michigan and again next week at Infineon but might not be back behind the wheel of his own Sprint Cup car until the Brickyard 400 in late July.

The driver/owner had hoped to field two cars at the road course at Infineon – one for him and another for Räikkönen, the 2007 Formula One champion. Raikkonen wrecked Gordon’s main road-course car at a test last month.

Gordon just finished getting that car repaired and he and Räikkönen couldn’t work out a deal for the Finnish driver to make his Cup debut for Robby Gordon Motorsports.

Räikkönen had driven in truck and Nationwide races for Kyle Busch Motorsports at Charlotte and left the door open to come back to America to compete at Infineon. Todd Hirschfield of the agency HMS Worldwide, which has brokered Räikkönen’s NASCAR deals, said Raikkonen has no plans to race next week at Infineon.

“I wish, but no,” Gordon said Friday at Michigan International Speedway. “Kimi is a hell of a race-car driver. I am a fan of his at the same time. … He’s talented. These cars are just a lot different than a Formula One car.”

Gordon tested a road-course car in the last couple of weeks while the car Räikkönen wrecked was rebuilt.

“That was my primary car that finished second last year at Infineon,” Gordon said. “That crash was a big deal for us. It will be done by the weekend. It’s a good car. It’s back to what it was.”

Gordon, who has had to start and park his car at times this year due to lack of sponsorship, will attempt to run the entire race at Michigan and Infineon. His next race likely will be Indianapolis in late July. He also has planned to run the Nationwide race at Montreal in August.

He said he might run two cars in some weeks for additional testing.

Gordon is now buying engines and using his own shop to rebuild and maintain them. He was leasing engines from Penske Motorsports.

“I have no beefs at all with Penske, it’s just a fact of cash,” Gordon said. “It’s a big difference.”

Gordon has driven in only one of the last four races while he has put Scott Wimmer and Johnny Sauter in his car for races where the team has not run the full events.

By putting someone else in the car when he doesn’t have enough funding, Gordon can work on selling his Speed energy drink. The sales of the drink are funding his team. He has a partnership with Walgreens this weekend for product placement, which will allow him to race.

“My sponsorship is different than everybody else,” Gordon said. “It’s all about those relationships and partners with good retailers, and obviously brand awareness.

If I don’t have product in those marketplaces, then I don’t need to build brand awareness in those marketplaces. … I’d love to race more.”

Gordon said sales are going well and the company will soon be able to compete with other energy drinks.

“We’re selling product,” Gordon said. “We have 1,000 more stores this month than last month. … I am in GNC, the only energy drink in GNC because I’m a vitamin energy drink.”

Source: SceneDaily.com
Courtesy: _TaniaS_

Video: Kimi Raikkonen testing Sprint Cup car at Virginia Raceway

Source: Formula1Arab - Credits to Dan Zipkin for the orignal video

Montoya: Räikkönen has promise in NASCAR

Juan Pablo Montoya thought former Formula 1 teammate Kimi Raikkonen did a good job in his NASCAR debut, and expects to see him in a Sprint Cup Series race this season.

But if Raikkonen is serious about NASCAR, Montoya said the former world champion will have to move to the United States and race as often as possible.

"If you are going to do it, you've got to do it properly," Montoya said Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. "It will bite you if you don't do it properly."

Raikkonen made his NASCAR debut in Friday night's Trucks Series race, finishing 15th driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports. The Finn has not officially announced his next race, but Busch admitted after the race there's a car ready for Raikkonen to use in next week's Nationwide Series event at Charlotte.

Busch insisted KBM does not own the car, and it's believed Raikkonen will be officially entered by Nemco Motorsports, the team owned by Joe Nemechek.

Montoya believes Raikkonen will quickly make the move through Nationwide and into the elite Sprint Cup Series to see if he likes driving stock cars. Montoya, a Colombian who lives full-time in Miami, is in his fifth season driving for Chip Ganassi. He's won two Sprint Cup race, both on road courses, and qualified once for the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

"He's got to get to Cup," said Montoya, who added he thinks Raikkonen can make the transition. "He needs experience. He's been around, he's done Formula 1, he's done it all. So for him, he's got to understand the ovals and he's got to get a Cup ride.

"But I think if he had a decent car, he'd be fine."

Raikkonen spent nine years in F1, driving for Sauber, McLaren and Ferrari. He totaled 18 wins, 62 podium finishes and won the 2007 championship.

He's currently racing for the World Rally Car Championship with his own team, ICE 1 Racing, and is ranked eighth in the overall standings. He's not scheduled to compete again in that series until next month in Greece.

Raikkonen said after the race it went better than he expected after struggling through two practice sessions earlier in the day, but he wished he'd finished higher and thought the 10 cautions slowed his rhythm.

"The racing was fun," Raikkonen said. "Too many cautions. Every time when I feel the car starts to work better then you have a caution and it takes a long time before the handling comes back."

Raikkonen twice hit the wall, and missed his call to pit the first time crew chief Rick Ren tried to bring him in. Ren, who is also the general manager of KBM, blamed it on the team chatter.

"There was too much talking going on the radio," Ren said. "I wanted to pit but everybody was on the radio. I've had experienced Cup guys do the same thing. It was no big deal."

Although Raikkonen wasn't sure of the rules for passing before the start/finish line on a restart, and was warned early in the race by NASCAR, Ren praised the driver.

"What impressed me more than anything was restarts, he didn't spin the tyres and was pushing people," Ren said. "I am wondering if F1 cars, they put down so much power that he's got a really good feel for when the tyres are slipping."

Overall, the experience was good, Raikkonen said, and he enjoyed all the interaction with fellow drivers who made a point to speak to him. There's no camaraderie in F1, and Montoya joked he probably spoke to Raikkonen more on Friday than he did the entire time the two were teammates.

"I just went to say 'Hi' and see how he was doing," Montoya said. "People did it to me here and I was really shocked, so if I can help, I will lend a hand."

It was the first time Montoya said he'd spoken to Raikkonen since Montoya walked away from his F1 ride in July, 2006. Montoya thought he was able to give KBM team members more assistance than he was Raikkonen.

"More the team than him, telling them why he's so loose and why he is struggling," Montoya said. "Our driving styles were a little bit different in Formula 1, but I know what he would like out of a car."

Source: F1Pulse.com

Räikkönen takes No. 7 Cup car for test at VIR

Finn runs laps in Gordon's car, his first in a Sprint Cup Series vehicle

Kimi Räikkönen took his first laps in a Sprint Cup vehicle on Tuesday when the former Formula One champion tested Robby Gordon's No. 7 car on the road course at Virginia International Raceway.

Gordon confirmed the news on his Twitter account. He turned the car over to Raikkonen because he was in Mexico City for a sponsor meeting, but planned to be in the No. 7 himself to test at VIR on Wednesday.

Räikkönen made his NASCAR debut last Friday with a 15th-place finish in the Camping World Truck Series event at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and is on the entry list to drive Joe Nemechek's No. 87 car in the Nationwide Series at the same track this Saturday. The Finn has expressed interest in wheeling a Sprint Cup car since April, when he first tested a truck for Kyle Busch Motorsports, the team he competed for last weekend.

VIR is often used as a testing ground for the Sprint Cup road race in Sonoma, Calif. Last week Räikkönen reiterated his hope to "run some Cup races," but there are currently no announced plans for the former F1 driver beyond Charlotte

Source: NASCAR.COM