McLaren Racing CEO expects Kyle Larson to eventually race in F1
The calls for Kyle Larson to get behind the wheel of an F1 car only grow louder the more chatter there is about who the best driver in the world is. And there’s been a lot of that talk in recent months.
This week, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown joined Kevin Harvick on the Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast and discussed exactly that possibility. And it turns out there might be some legitimate substance to it.
“Yeah, we’ve been chatting about it,” Brown told Harvick. “Kyle, as you can imagine, definitely wants to do it in between our schedule, which goes from February to December, and NASCAR’s schedule, which I think is what, February to November. Finding that window. We did that with Jimmie Johnson and Fernando in Bahrain with Hendrick Motorsport. That must have been about four to five years ago, and that was a lot of fun.
“So I’d like to see Kyle in an F1 car. It is something that we’ve discussed and something that I do think will happen down the road.”
Kyle Larson has already taken part in just about every other kind of racing there is. He’ll frequently hop behind the wheel in some of the smaller racing circuits in his off time, collecting wins just about everywhere.
Earlier this year he made waves when he attempted to run the double at the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day. That ultimately proved an unsuccessful attempt due to weather, though Larson did manage to finish the Indy 500 portion of it, coming in 18th place.
But can he handle an F1 car?
The talented young driver certainly seems to think so. He’s arguably the top driver in his discipline, and Kyle Larson figures that would translate over to F1 rather nicely.
He has claimed this year that he’s a better all-around driver than F1 star Max Verstappen.
“I know in my mind I am better than him as an all-around driver,” Kyle Larson said, putting it bluntly when asked by FloRacing if he would have to race and beat Verstappen to feel like the world’s best driver. “There’s no way (Verstappen) can get into a Sprint Car and win the Knoxville Nationals. There’s no way he can go win the Chili Bowl. There’s no way he can go win a Cup race at Bristol.
“There’s probably no way I can go win a Formula 1 race at Monaco, but I think I’d have a better shot at him (doing what he does than him doing what I do) just because of the car element. That’s what gives me ease and confidence that, like, I know I’m better than him. Maybe not in an open-wheel IndyCar or Formula 1 car, but that’s one discipline. I think I would beat him in everything else. You can quote that.”
What better way to prove he’s serious about the comparison than getting behind the wheel of an F1 car? And it sounds like — much to the benefit of racing fans everywhere — that might actually happen at some point.