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Raikkonen keen on road Cup race

Kimi Raikkonen wants to take part in a NASCAR Sprint Cup road course race, following his test in a Robby Gordon Racing Toyota at Virginia International Raceway earlier this week

The 2007 F1 world champion's test was hampered by an early off that damaged the nose of his car during the morning, and then rain in the afternoon.

Despite his limited running, the Finn enjoyed the test, which came just a few days after he finished 15th on his NASCAR debut in the Truck Series at Charlotte.

"We had few issues in the test with the Cup car," said Raikkonen. "We didn't do an awful lot of running in the morning and then in the afternoon we knew it was going to start raining. So I went out and just ran a bit wide and decided to go over the grass but there was a big hole or something in the grass so it destroyed the front a bit and then it started to rain anyhow.

"It was fun to drive it, the road course with that car."

Raikkonen was non-committal when asked if he will be taking part in a Sprint Cup race soon, but said he wants to try it and showed a preference for doing so on a road course.

NASCAR's top series visits Sears Point on June 26 - a date that does not clash with Raikkonen's World Rally Championship schedule, making it a likely choice for the Finn.

"Of course we have all this in mind, try to do it," said Raikkonen. "The other thing is it going to happen or not, I don't know.

"Of course I'm probably more keen to do those road courses than anything else.

"I'll leave [on] Saturday as soon as the [Charlotte Nationwide Series] race is over [and go] back to Europe. I have other things to do there, so after that I don't know when I will be back but I after that I have a rally in Greece and then some other rallies at least before I'll be back."

Kyle Busch, who is fielding a car through NEMCO Motorsports for Raikkonen this weekend in the Nationwide race Charlotte, had initially spoken about running him in about three to five Truck Series events.

However, he said on Thursday no further outings are currently planned and that joint plans for his Cup debut have not been discussed.

"We appreciate the guys from Kyle Busch Motorsports doing the building of the car and then for NEMCO Motorsports and them working on it here this week - along with us just trying to help them out in case there's any bugs," said Busch.

"As far as the Sonoma [Sears Point] race, we've had no discussions about Cup stuff at all. As far as I know, just this weekend is the last hoorah with Kimi unless he comes back and wants to do further races in NASCAR."

Busch added that there have been changes on his initial deal with Raikkonen.

"What's changed is the payment schedule," Busch said. "The contract states that we're supposed to receive so much and we have not. We've only received enough for these two races.

"It's either up to Kimi or up to the financial people that run Kimi's business side of things and decide that they need to find the sponsorship funds in order to carry the experience for him further."

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