Kurt Busch will attend next weekend’s European Grand Prix in Baku, Azerbaijan, to watch his NASCAR team owner Gene Haas’ Haas F1 team.
It’s a rare off weekend for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and the 2004 series champion and 2014 Indianapolis 500 rookie-of-the-year will spend it – naturally – at a race track.
“Next week, we have an off-week from our NASCAR circuit and I’m headed over to the Middle East to watch our Formula 1 team at Baku, (Azerbaijan),” Busch said Friday at Michigan International Speedway.
“I can’t wait to hang out with ( and have the opportunity to sit next to a Formula 1 driver and see his tools that he uses; whether it’s simulation, whether it’s mapping. I’m hoping that I can discover things that I’ll be able to ask Gene. ‘Hey Gene, why don’t we have that? Let’s bring that back over to the North Carolina side and use it for the Sprint Cup teams.’
For Busch, who who won at Pocono on Monday, it’ll be a chance to see how the F1 world works at a track where no one has an advantage. The Baku race is new to the F1 schedule and will put everyone on level footing.
“It’s just an exciting time for Gene, all the way around, with the success that he had early on in F1,” Busch said.
“But now to settle-in as the season is going on and for us to deliver a win, it’s really a neat time with Gene Haas. He’s having a lot of fun in motorsports and he’s pushing harder and harder and harder.
“And I hope that there is something that I can bring back and cross-pollinate with our Sprint Cup team from F1.”
