Trackhouse are the defending winners of this event with Ross Chastain taking the checkered flag in 2022.
Raikkonen made his Cup debut at Watkins Glen last August, starting 27th and finishing 37th after getting collected in incident exiting the bus stop chicane.
He's back again this weekend, racing alongside fellow F1 World Champion Jenson Button for the first time since the 2017 Monaco Grand Prix.
In qualifying, they were only 0.033s apart in lap times with Raikkonen qualifying 22nd and Button 24th.
The Finnish driver spoke with the media on Saturday about his continued learning curve as he goes up against stock car racing's best.
"It’s the same track but it feels a lot different in an F1 car to a NASCAR car," said Raikkonen, who earned his final F1 win in the 2018 United States Grand Prix at COTA. "A lot of the corners are more kind of straights in F1 because of the downforce. It gets a bit trickier in a NASCAR car. It’s nice to be back and it’s a lovely place to be here in Texas. Let’s hope we can do well. We will try to improve from yesterday and today and see what we do in the race.”
He has two experienced teammates to lean on with Chastain and Daniel Suarez, who both earned victories at road courses last year. Post-session briefings differ from what he was accustomed to while in Formula 1, calling it a more relaxed atmosphere.
“It's different. In F1, it’s a lot of meetings and a lot of other stuff," he explained. "Here, it’s a bit more relaxed. You kind of have the meetings, but it’s a different way. I don’t have the experience with the cars and all the details, so we had a meeting yesterday as a group, as a whole team, and it’s nice to listen and assess what they thought about the car and what they should do with the car. I think it sounds like everybody has similar difficulties with the cars here. The rear seems to be the tricky part in the highest bit but it’s good to have teammates and to hear what they’re saying and get some advice from them.”
The cars remain the same from his last Cup appearance at Watkins Glen, but the rules package has changed. NASCAR has taken a significant amount of downforce off the cars for events at short tracks and road courses. That was immediately noticeable to Raikkonen during Friday's practice.
"I haven’t driven any racecars since last year, so it takes a while to get used to it again even though I know the car," he said. "The car has lost some downforce, so it makes it a bit more tail-happy. At least I know that most of the things how it goes. Is it going to get any better results? We’ll find out. But I know the track so that helps, but as I said before it’s a lot different track with a NASCAR car than an F1 car.
"I feel more ready for sure on that side now that I know how the race goes and how everything else goes.”
Everything is different
NASCAR has also removed stage breaks for road course events, allowing the race to play out more naturally than in the past. Raikkonen noted how 'everything is different' both on and off the track between NASCAR and F1, especially the self-policing nature between the drivers.
“Obviously, I have some experience on different cars and different categories. I did Rally, which is completely different to what I was used to doing in F1," he began. "NASCAR, again, it’s easy to think that they’re all kind of similar because you have a steering wheel and four tires, but it changes a lot.
"The racing is slightly different because in F1 with open wheels, if you touch somebody you usually lose a car or lose the wheel. You cannot really take that risk in F1 that much because you lose tiny parts of the car, and your car is suddenly a second slower than it should be. In NASCAR, you can have a bit more closer racing. Obviously, the rules are different. They’re more open here. I think it’s more of if you kind of behave, well they’ll behave a similar way against you the way I’ve understood. It makes it more exciting at the end of the races when people can be quite aggressive.
"Everything is different. How they run practices, how they run qualifying, it’s all kind of a learning curve. The car is obviously a lot more different to drive than any other car that I’ve driven before. I like it. It’s quite relaxed. It’s very warming kind of atmosphere. It’s good. I had a good experience in the last one last year. It didn’t end up like we had wished, but when you have 40 other cars, things can go wrong.”
One of the main things he has enjoyed about NASCAR is the ability to overtake without the assist of something like DRS.
"There are places you can overtake, and especially in F1, you don’t get a lot of circuits you can have a good race. People can actually overtake without the DRS, and it feels more like a normal older-style F1 racing.
"So that’s how the track layout works for F1 quite well. As I said before, in F1, it’s not flat. Some of the first parts are almost flat, (turns) 17 and 18, those are pretty easy and flat for those cars. A lot of the corners that are tricky. Probably the most tricky corners for NASCAR, they’re not really for F1 cars because of the downforce. It makes a huge difference in the track. All of the bumps the track has in F1 you get away with a lot because, again, the downforce helps and you don’t really feel it but in a NASCAR car, the effect is quite big. It makes it a much more tricky track to drive and to get the car somewhat working as you wish. It’s a completely different track in many ways. It sounds stupid because it’s the same track, but the car makes it a lot different.”
Sunday's race will also feature the return of Jimmie Johnson and Conor Daly, as well as the debut of IMSA star Jordan Taylor.
