Formula 1 Legend Kimi Raikkonen To Drive In NASCAR For Pitbull's Race Team

Former Formula 1 champion Kimi Raikkonen is coming out of retirement to race in NASCAR for Trackhouse Racing, which is co-founded by Grammy award-winning artist Pitbull.

Raikkonen will be in the field at the Go Bowling at The Glen at Watkins Glen International on Sunday, Aug. 21 at 3:00 p.m. ET on USA. Raikkonen will be the third car of the race team made up of Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez.

Raikkonen, 42, retired from Formula 1 at the end of last season after accumulating 21 wins and a Formula 1 World Championship in 2007.

Trackhouse Racing initially announced PROJECT91 Tuesday, in which the team said they would add a guest driver to race in at least one of races on the calendar this season. Fellow co-owner, Justin Marks, said the driver, now identified as Raikkonen, would drive the No. 91. Chastain, who has won twice this year, including the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in April, drives the No. 1 car, while Suarez drives the No. 99.

"PROJECT91’s mission is to activate the intersection point of NASCAR racing and global motorsport culture," Marks said. "I truly believe the Next Gen car represents an opportunity for NASCAR to enter the global professional motorsport conversation. We now have a race vehicle with international technological relevance where world-class drivers from other disciplines can compete at NASCAR’s highest level without the steep learning curve that the previous generation cars required."

The Finnish driver is known as "The Iceman," and previously drove in two races in the NASCAR Truck Series and Xfinity Series in 2011 for Kyle Busch Motorsports.

"I think without the experience there and a few races, one in the Truck and one in Nationwide, I probably wouldn’t be that interested," Raikkonen told Autosport. "That was obviously on an oval, this is now on a road course. I’m looking forward to it, to having good, close racing, and on the road course, maybe have some chance at least to maybe do something."