According to Finland’s Turun Sanomat newspaper the 2007 F1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen has signed a deal to race in NASCAR races during 2011 summer. It is rumored that Raikkonen will actually drive with his own ICE1 Racing team that supports his WRC 8-race program as well as Finish motocross riders. His NASCAR program will be further supported by Foster Gillett, the former managing partner of Gillete-Evernham NASCAR Team, merged with Richard Petty's organization.
Just like Jacques Villeneuve did in his NASCAR attempt, Raikkonen might plan to try his racing skills series in the Camping World Truck and Nationwide series. If his performance will be successful, Raikkonen could easily join RedBull Racing when Kasey Kane will move to Hendrick Motorsports in 2012 and land a full-fledged Sprint Cup program in the near future due to his ties with RedBull organization that funds also his WRC program.
No official ICE1 Racing team announcement has been made about Raikkonen's future NASCAR program, but the iceman seems ready for the NASCAR fever after announcing his plans to the Finish press:
“I'm really looking forward to get there to familiarise to the world of Nascar. I have been following it for a long time. I know, it's a very tough and open top racing series. I just love the American spirit of racing. It feels just great to get involved with that. Obviously, it will be very challenging and great fun for me.”
Raikkonen left F1 at the end of 2009 when Fernando Alonso replaced him at Ferrari because as Ferrari's President Luca Di Montezemolo has explained ironically, "when Raikkonen won the championship, he put his "twin brother" into Ferrari's cockpit to drive". Although Raikkonen was linked with an F1 return with McLaren for 2010 and Renault for 2011, he turned down their offers preferring, as it turns out to be another racing "Rolling Stone".
The latest years a few open-wheel drivers both from Indycars and F1 have tried to land a NASCAR career, but so far noone of the popular Indy 500 winners and champions Jacques Villeneuve and Dario Franchitti or even Scot Speed, Max Papis, Patrick Carpentier and Nelson Piquet Jr, have proved successful. Indycar 1998 ex-champion and ex-F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya is the only driver that has accomplished NASCAR victories but only to road-course events and lays alongside A.J. Almendinger and Al Unser Jr. in the midfield of Sprint Cup Series.
Moreover, Ray Evernham, a former partner of Foster Gillett at Richard Petty Motorsports was a little bit astounded when he learned of the rumour of Kimi Raikkonen is coming to NASCAR with a new team owned by Foster Gillett, and explained at Auto123.com his opinion from the marketing-corporate view.
“I really don’t know why Kimi would partner with people who continually fail with sports franchises. I don’t know how they could leave with so many unpaid bills and return to the sport."
Evernham, the former Jeff Gordon crew chief, used to be Gillett's partner after merging their racing organizations to form Gillett-Evernham Team. When Petty Enterprises ran into some financial troubles it merged with GEM to become Richard Petty Motorsports. However, when Gillet forced to sale his RPM's assets back to Petty and NY investor Andrew Murstein, due to his debts from his British soccer team, Evernham says he was not paid over his $19USD million share and brought a lawsuit against his former partner who tries to establish another NASCAR team.
