How NASCAR stars taught F1 veterans a big lesson in racecraft at Austin

At least Kimi Raikkonen had faced the NASCAR Cup experience once before, arriving at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas having been booted out of last year’s race at Watkins Glen and into the tirewall, so at least he knew what he could expect.

Fellow F1 world champion Jenson Button joined him at COTA, and they were quickly lapping at a decent pace in practice and qualifying – where the pair were separated by just 0.033s! – but would start outside of the top 20.

But when it came to the racing they were pretty much blown away.

The starkest example was Raikkonen’s perfectly-timed final pitstop that rocketed him to fourth with nine laps remaining. Having kept his nose clean all day, with barely a scratch on his Trackhouse Chevrolet Camaro, Kimi chose to restart on the outside lane in fourth, rather than lose a position but gain the all-important inside line for the long, uphill run to Turn 1.

There, he braked with the frontrunners, but when he turned in, Denny Hamlin had dived to his inside to make it three-wide, and Daniel Suarez – his team-mate – briefly got into the rear of him before backing out.

And who took the fifth spot at that restart? Tyler Reddick, who timed it to perfection and lunged down the inside to claim the lead. He went on to win the race…

Kimi Raikkonen, Trackhouse Racing, and #91 crew chief Darian Grubb

Photo by: Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images

That sent Kimi back to eighth, but he’d learnt a valuable lesson – dropping a spot to restart ninth but on the inside lane next time. The first corner worked out much better for him, but then he then found himself four-wide at Turn 2 and got pushed back to 11^th. After rubbing doors with Joey Logano through the Esses, Raikkonen was shuffled out again, ending the next lap in 17^th. Ouch!

After another yellow, Kimi clearly had enough of going backwards and piled into the back of Ryan Blaney at the next restart at Turn 1, spinning him out. Raikkonen got back to 12^th by choosing the outside lane for the next restart, but the punter soon became the punted; he got spun further around the lap and would end his day way back in 29^th.

#11 Denny Hamlin leads #91 Kimi Raikkonen

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“They kept coming, getting more restarts and more restarts, so I think after the spin I had, the tires were just done,” he reflected afterwards. “It’s…