Pitbull's NASCAR team signs former F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen for road race

• Kimi Raikkonen is returning to NASCAR for one race with Pitbull's Trackhouse Racing.
• Raikkonen will make his Cup Series debut at the Watkins Glen road course.

The Iceman is back, and this time he will take the wheel of a stock car in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Former Formula One champion Kimi Raikkonen has signed on for one race with Pitbull's Trackhouse Racing.

The 42-year-old Finnish driver will make his Cup Series debut at the Watkins Glen road course in August. Raikkonen previously ran single races in 2011 in the Nationwide Series and the Truck Series, the second- and third-tiers of NASCAR.

Raikkonen, who won the 2007 championship with Ferrari, spent 19 seasons in F1 with 21 wins and 103 podiums. He retired from F1 after the 2021 season with Alfa Romeo.

He will drive the new No. 91 car as part of Trackhouse's Project91, an initiative designed to bring more international drivers to NASCAR, especially from F1 and MotoGP.

Pitbull's co-owner, former driver Justin Marks, flew to Switzerland to convince Raikkonen to come out of retirement.

"I wasn't looking to race again, but Justin came to my home in Switzerland and convinced me how serious he was about putting together a top-notch program," said Raikkonen during the team's announcement. "This will be fun, but it's something I will take very seriously. I know how competitive the NASCAR Cup Series is, and it will be a big challenge."

Raikkonen said in 2014 that he hoped someday to return to NASCAR.

"I hope one day [to come back]," Raikkonen told Jeff Gluck of The Athletic. "Obviously, I didn't know how it is, so when I came to US to do that, I was very pleasantly surprised by how nice and how fun it was. It's not easy, like any popular sport, but I really enjoyed the time. Hopefully, I can do more of those and hopefully, in the future, some Sprint Cup."

Marks noted that Raikkonen is the perfect blend of talent and popularity to kick off Project91.

"Kimi Raikkonen is the driver I first had in mind when we created Project91," Marks said. "Kimi is a world-renowned driver with a tremendous amount of talent and fan following. We have had long discussions, and like us, he is already hard at work preparing for Watkins Glen."

Trackhouse has two full-time cars in the NASCAR Cup Series, including No. 1 with Ross Chastain and No. 99 with Daniel Suarez, the only full-time NASCAR driver from Mexico.