The motorsports world mourned the passing of Robin Miller. Mother Nature won the Belgian Grand Prix, but the record book will say Max Verstappen won the shortest grand prix in Formula One history. Eau Rouge had itself a weekend. George Russell should be in a Mercedes at Zandvoort. Another new American is on the Formula Three grid and Americans were finishing on the podium in Belgium. It rained again in Daytona. MotoGP and IndyCar both already had a Rossi and now they both have a Dixon. Super Formula returned from its extended Olympic break. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
What Does it Mean to be the Best?
Kyle Larson has made a statement this summer, really this entire year, but his exploits over the last few months has caught everyone's attention.
Larson won on the first day of summer at Nashville Superspeedway. It was his fourth NASCAR Cup victories of the season and his third consecutive, fourth consecutive overall when you take into consideration his All-Star Race victory. And that was just his day job.
On the side, Larson started the year with his second consecutive Chili Bowl victory. He branched out into dirt late model racing this year and won the Winter Nationals in Florida in January. At the end of July, he won the Prairie Dirt Classic, one of the top events in that discipline. He won two races during Pennsylvania Speedweek. The night after Larson won the Coca-Cola 600, he won his first World of Outlaws event of the season at Lawrenceburg Speedway in Indiana. He won the King's Royal in the middle of July and last week Larson picked up the biggest victory of his career at the Knoxville Nationals.
Between his NASCAR Cup success, leading the championship and having the most victories, Larson's incredible dirt record has led many to crown him the best around today. Not the best NASCAR driver, but perhaps the best driver in the world.
After his Knoxville victory, Larson was quickly mentioned in the same breath as A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti. Many struggled to come with a better contemporary comparison, though Tony Stewart and even Juan Pablo Montoya were mentioned.
It is easy to become a prisoner to the moment and make knee-jerk proclamations. Larson is doing something unprecedented, and it is great to see firsthand. For all the NASCAR drivers that have come from dirt backgrounds, none of the big names won the Knoxville Nationals, prior or during a Cup career. The only other Knoxville Nationals winner with a prominent NASCAR Cup career is Dave Blaney, whose NASCAR career started a few years after his Knoxville triumph.
But perspective is important, and while Larson's success is incredible, the world of motorsports is vast. What does it mean to be the best?
One of the first names that came to my mind after Larson's Knoxville weekend is Naoki Yamamoto. To many outside of Japan, Yamamoto is an unknown. You may remember Yamamoto driving for Scuderia Toro Rosso in a Friday practice at Suzuka a few years ago. Besides that one Formula One visit, Yamamoto is coming off winning the Super GT and the Super Formula championships in 2020. He did the same thing in 2018. One of Yamamoto's rivals, Nick Cassidy won the 2017 Super GT championship and was runner-up in the following two seasons. In Super Formula, Cassidy was runner-up to Yamamoto in 2018 before winning the title ahead of Yamamoto in 2019.
For equivalence's sake, Yamamoto accomplished winning the IndyCar championship and IMSA Daytona Prototype international championship in the same year... twice. Meanwhile, Cassidy did the same thing and was basically Yamamoto's equal over a four-year period.
In the United States, nobody knows who Yamamoto is. Cassidy has moved to Formula E and he ran the 2019 24 Hours of Daytona, one of his few American experiences. Neither driver would be considered for best driver in the world, and yet their accomplishments are not being repeated elsewhere. How many drivers have topped a major open-wheel series and a major sports car series at the same time?
While Larson has done something unprecedented, earlier this year, Hélio Castroneves accomplished another unprecedented feat. Castroneves won the 24 Hours of Daytona and the Indianapolis 500 in the same year. Indianapolis just happened to be his fourth victory in the famed event, putting him level with Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears for the all-time record. Castroneves has also done all this as the reigning IMSA Daytona Prototype international champion.
Sébastien Buemi has spent the better part of the last decade splitting his time between the FIA World Endurance Championship and Formula E, and Buemi has been one of the best in both championships. Buemi has two World Endurance Drivers' championships and one Formula E championship. He is the all-time leader in Formula E victories with 13, and he has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times.
And then there are the likes of Scott Dixon. Six IndyCar championships, 51 IndyCar victories, three-time overall winners of the 24 Hours of Daytona, plus a class victory at Daytona, and a Petit Le Mans victory. Lewis Hamilton has won six world championships and is pushing 100 grand prix victories. Fernando Alonso has bridged the single-seater/sports car divide, won world championships in both disciplines, with two Le Mans victories, two Monaco victories and a 24 Hours of Daytona triumph. Sébastien Bourdais has four IndyCar championships and 37 victories, but he also has overall victories in the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring with a class victory at Le Mans.
How do you determine who is greater among the nine drivers mentioned above? And it has only been nine drivers mentioned. There are plenty more out there that deserve to be in the discussion.
How do you split open-wheel and sports car success compared to stock car and dirt racing? How do you split regional or domestic championships from international championships? How do you rate drivers who only compete in one discipline versus those who run multiple? There is no weight system. You cannot go to the back of a composition notebook and find a conversion table for all these things. We use our gut to decide out what feels right when it comes to deciding the best, our famously unreliable and unscientific guts.
Success is a given to be considered the best, cross-discipline success is a boost, but time is another thing. Success needs to be a habit to be considered the best. Larson has been winning on dirt his entire life. NASCAR success has been harder to come by, but he has been one of the top drivers for the last few years. He also has a 24 Hours of Daytona victory, but his sports car participation was brief and stopped a few seasons ago.
We live in the moment, but the moment changes. Larson is currently considered as one of the best around, but a rough patch will quickly take him out of that spotlight. Everyone thought Kevin Harvick had a historic season going last year in NASCAR and then he failed to make the championship race. If Larson's season follows a similar path, these discussions will go dormant for a while. There will also be the pressure to replicate this success in the future. He likely will not all win the exact same events year after year, but to retain the status he has to win the big events on a consistent basis and be a consistent championship threat, otherwise 2021 will be remembered as a flash in the pan.
To be the best you must do more. The unprecedented is still great, but while Larson has been compared to Tony Stewart, Stewart has three Cup championships. Larson has zero. Stewart has an IndyCar championship. Larson has zero, and likely will always have zero. Larson is still young, but to be the best he needs to change some of those zeros, and in time he will.
We must remember what it means to be the best is a fluid. There is not one checklist or one path for the reaching this subjective mountain top. There will never one consensus answer, but we will continue to search for the one that fits best.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Max Verstappen, but did you know...
Lorenzo Colombo won the first Formula Three race from Spa-Francorchamps, but Jack Doohan won the other two.
Ryan Blaney won the NASCAR Cup race from Daytona, his second consecutive victory and third of the season. Justin Haley won the Grand National Series race, his first victory of the season.
Fabio Quartararo won MotoGP's British Grand Prix, his fifth victory of the season. Remy Gardner won the Moto2 race, his fourth victory of the season. Romano Fenati won the Moto3 race, his first victory of the season.
The #3 K-Pax Racing Lamborghini of Andrea Caldarelli and Jordan Pepper and the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW of Robby Foley and Michael Dinan split the GT World Challenge America race from Road America.
The #34 Bimmerworld Racing BMW of Bill Auberlen and James Walker and the #119 Stephen Cameron Racing BMW of Sean Quinlan and Gregory Liefooghe split the GT4 America races from Road America. James Sofronas and Andy Wilzoch split the GT America races.
The #32 Team WRT Audi of Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts and the #6 Toksport WRT Mercedes-AMG of Maro Engel and Luca Stolz split the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup races from Brands Hatch.
Tomoki Nojiri won the Super Formula race from Motegi, his third victory of the season.
Reece Gold, Artem Petrov and Hunter McElrea split the Indy Pro 2000 races from New Jersey Motorsports Park. Kiko Porto, Myles Rowe and Nolan Siegel split the U.S. F2000 races.
Coming Up This Weekend
The Southern 500.
Zandvoort finally returns to the Formula One schedule.
The 6 Hours of Nürburgring will be the penultimate round of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Series.
The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters visits the busy Red Bull Ring.
World Superbike moves on to Magny-Cours.
