NASCAR president compares Kyle Larson’s ‘winning mentality’ with Tony Stewart's

NASCAR president Steve Phelps compared Kyle Larson's personality with Tony Stewart's. He said that Larson has the ability to win in any racing series he takes part in.

Kyle Larson has emerged as one of the most competitive drivers in NASCAR. After winning his first Cup Series championship in 2021, he has been on the chase for a second one.

This season, he has won four races, the most of any other driver, and is leading the playoff standings. Apart from the Cup Series, he also took part in the Indianapolis 500 for the first time.

Talking about his competitiveness on Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour podcast, NASCAR president Steve Phelps said that Larson has the ability to win in any competition.

"If he wants to race anything, right, and he has, right?" He said (at 8:37). "I mean, I think the IndyCar experiment was a good one in circumstances, you know, cautions and different pieces. I mean, can he win in IndyCar? He can win in any car and IndyCar.

"With that said, Kyle clearly loves to race, right, and he can win in anything. And to me, it is about his winning, right? It is about his talent, and whether it's, you know, Tony Stewart or all these other folks, pundits, who are saying, "Hey, he's the best driver in the world," right? Or, "He's a generational talent," or whatever it is that they say, which are all true."

Phelps then talked about former driver Tony Stewart, comparing between him and Kyle Larson.

While both drivers were extremely competitive during their eras, there was a difference in their mentality. Phelps noted that Stewart "had a personality," and that he would always want to win everything he got himself into.

"So I find it different, right? It's not like, like, a Tony Stewart, right?" He continued (at 10:00). "Tony had lots of personality, right? And lots of, you know, sometimes he was good Tony, and sometimes he was not so much, right? But he was always about winning, right?

"And it was always about showing his personality. And I think that's what fans gravitated to. Like, he wanted to win in everything he jumped in."

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Harvick claims Kyle Larson can "drive anything" amidst Max Verstappen debtate

Last week, Kyle Larson stirred up the motorsports world after comparing himself with reigning F1 world champion Max Verstappen, saying that he's "better" as an all-around driver. He also claimed that Verstappen wouldn't drive a Sprint Car and win the Knoxville Nationals or even step in the Cup Series to win at Bristol.

That raised a debate on social media, and Kevin Harvick joined in. Supporting Larson, he said that the Hendrick Motorsports driver can "drive anything."

"The thing that I can tell you that if Kyle Larson went to drive Max Verstappen's car, it wouldn't be but one or two days and he would be damn close to being as fast as Max Verstappen," Harvick said. But there is no way that Max Verstappen comes up over here and does that in a Stock car.

"I heard him (Verstappen) talk about drivers being specialized in their discipline, that's not Kyle Larson. Kyle Larson can go out and drive anything. He's very good at his discipline. But he's got multiple disciplines, and we saw what he did in an IndyCar, and I truly believe that Max would do okay, but he's not gonna do anything anywhere close to what Kyle Larson does."

Others in NASCAR also shared their word about the debate. Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin said that the comparison is not fair.