Two years ago, after winning his third Knoxville Nationals title, a confident Kyle Larson stirred the motorsport world with a statement. “I know in my mind I am better than him as an all-around driver.” And by “him” he meant the then reigning Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen. According to him, there is no way Max could get on the Sprint Car and win the Knoxville Nationals or go win a race at Bristol. Two years later he is not just revisiting the who is the better driver debate but a bias he notices between the two sport worlds.

A debate that refused to stay local

His statements back then received a lot of flak on the global stage. Larson sees the backlash, and he is not shy to face it. On a recent appearance on Speed with Harvick, he revisited the storm that his comments unleashed.

“From a certain part of the fan base, it was a ‘don’t be so ridiculous.’ That’s a stupid thing to say. Of course, it’s Max Verstappen,” he said. But he was quick to point out the scale and context of both sports. “Formula 1 is huge, right? I mean, it’s by far the biggest, most-watched motorsport that there is.” But according to him, there is more at play than just numbers and laps. 

Larson thinks that geographic bias is a real thing, and it is a major reason he faced skepticism. According to Larson, Americans don’t often get the nod when it comes to being world-class drivers in motorsports from the Europeans. 

“I think Americans in general don’t get the respect that they deserve from Europeans in any form of sport. “They’re not paying attention to what we’re doing over here in America, and rightfully so; that’s fine, whatever,” the 2025 Cup Series winner said. “They don’t think that there can ever be another driver as good as the worst Formula 1 driver.”

Meanwhile the Red Bull driver listening to Larson’s comments back then took the high road. He simply said, “That’s fine. Everyone thinks their own way, right?” But he would be glad to see that now the opinion from the NASCAR driver seems to have changed. 

“He’s extremely good. He gets the praise from so many people; you have to accept that, yes, he probably is the best,” said Larson. “What he does is amazing; even his teammate is never even on the same stratosphere as him,” he said.

While the motorsport world can be debating who is the better driver, Max Verstappen has a rather close connection to the NASCAR world. Daniel Suarez is married to his long-term partner Kelly Piquet’s sister Julia Piquet. This family bond sure does bridge some of that gap! 

As far as racing goes, until Verstappen decides to make the move to stock car racing no one will know what’s the outcome. The F1 car is completely different from NASCAR; both require different sets of skills, which is why it is tough to identify who the better drivers are among the two.

The impossible standard of comparing cross-disciplinary drivers

The debate between who is the better driver, Larson or Verstappen, collapses at the very first question: how is their greatness being compared? The issue is that F1 and NASCAR are fundamentally different races that test different skills. F1, for example, gives higher priority to single-lap extraction, tyre thermal windows, ERS deployment, brake-by-wire modulation, and operating under parc fermé restrictions that severely limit how much you can modify your car after qualifying.

NASCAR, on the other hand, emphasizes traffic management, restarts, pack racing, side-drafting, and long-run tyre falloff.

Even the development pathways differ. The FIA Super License system requires 40 points, awarding 40 for an IndyCar title, yet only 15 for a NASCAR Cup title.

Thus, the metrics between both forms of racing are severely incompatible. There exists no unified way to measure the two drivers, each excelling within entirely different systems. The debate, therefore, is not a contest with a clear winner, but a structural mismatch, one that ensures the question remains open rather than resolved.