By David Morgan, Associate Editor
AUSTIN, Texas – Welcome to NASCAR, gentlemen.
Needless to say Sunday’s marathon EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas was an eye-opening experience for the road course ringers that came to play in the NASCAR Cup Series this weekend in Austin.
Jenson Button and Jordan Taylor, champions in Formula 1 and IMSA, respectively, were making their first start in the Cup Series and were joined by another former F1 world champion in Kimi Raikkonen making just his second Cup start.
By the time the checkered flag fell, they had all been taken to the school of hard knocks.
Button, driving the No. 15 Ford for Rick Ware Racing, placed the best of them with an 18th place result, but at one point in the race, the Englishman thought he might not make it to the end – battling both the heat in the car and the aggressive nature of NASCAR road course racing.
Regardless, the 2009 F1 champion was all smiles afterwards as he recounted his day.
“It was an emotional rollercoaster,” Button said. “First, it was terrible. I mean, I must’ve been last by the end of it. And I was just like, ‘Everyone: Go. I just need to drive and find a rhythm.’ I’ve never gone through a corner two-wide, so often. And trying to place my car in the right place – I just got it wrong every time.
“Normally, if you’re a little bit slow through a corner, nobody tries to overtake you from the outside. Because they’re not going to make it all the way on the next one. But here they do, because they get a wheel inside for the next one, and if you turn in, you turn around. The first stint was really bad – it was embarrassing for me. I was like, ‘All right guys, we need to pit, freshen the tires and I need some air – I need some fresh air.’ I got that. The pace was good, consistency was good. I was really happy… and passed a few cars which was nice.
“We got a little bit unlucky with the safety car because it was just two laps before our window. Pitted, then the next stint was mayhem. We also made a couple of changes that just didn’t work. Big oversteer – went from the car feeling great to really difficult to drive. I also had a massive whack from Kimi [Räikkönen], and it fell off after that. The car wasn’t quite right. Everytime I turned in, the rear tires would chatter, then immediately to oversteer. It was really difficult, but towards the end, we made some good calls stopping and…
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