‘I had a whack from Kimi Raikkonen…’ - Jenson Button reflects on “silly” NASCAR debut

2009 F1 champion Jenson Button has described his debut in American series NASCAR as “a bit silly” as he got to grips with a different style of racing stateside.
‘I had a whack from Kimi…’ - Button reflects on “silly” NASCAR debut

Button made his NASCAR Cup Series debut💧 at the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday, finishing 18th overall.

The British dri🐼ver was joined by formꦐer F1 rival , who was also in action.

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Raikkonen fared slightl𒅌y worse, classif💃ying 29th, although the Finn did run close to the top five before a spin.

Reflecting on his own debut, Button adm𓆏𓂃itted that he suffered “heat exhaustion” which hampered his race.

"I had to take a while to learn the racecraft, and I hadn't raced for three years either, and I've never hit a car - intentionally - and then after the first stint, when I changed tyres, I was like, 'Guys put me in clear air, I need some laps on my own', and they did, they did a rꦑeally good job on the pit stop and I was able to run clear,” he told Fox Sports. “I really enjoyed it and the pace was good.

“And then onꦫ the next stint I'd had a whack from Kimi [Raikkonen] and it just felt so oversteery, I just went backwards, and I also had heat exhaustion. I was like 'guys, I have to stop', it was that bad.”

Button ⭕conceded t🐬hat NASCAR’s combative racing system took some time to get used to.

"You get to Turn 1 an♈d everyone is in the way," he added. "People are braking later than me and they just hit a car and use that to slow down! That was the thing for me. It's just, I have to say, I enjoyed the race, I'd say 60% of it; 40% of it kind of felt a bit silly, the amount that we were hitting each other.

‘In Turn 1… I would turn in and get whacked. Luckily it didn't spin me round and on the exit I got a big whack back. The revenge is enjoyable but there's points where it feels that we could do better. I mean the action's amazing, don't get me🌼 wrong, I have to give it to these guys. The first 10 laps, it just destroyed me… every time I was in a corner I had 🌞someone overtaking me.”

‘I had a whack from Kimi…’ - Button reflects on “silly” NASCAR debut

Raikkoneꦚn blamed tyre 🔴wear and the elongated race for his fall down the order.

“Yeah, I think it was not too bad, I mean the car behaved on most of the [time] pretty n💟icely,” the Finn explained to The Podium Finish. “We just got unlucky with a few of the incidents and then got taken out ♋a few times but it's one of those things.

"In the end I just had no🀅 tyres left and it kept [wearing] after more restart and more restart. And with the spin that I ♔had, the tyres were just done, but yeah, it's a shame."

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