Max Verstappen could race with Project 91 in NASCAR, believes Kevin Harvick

Kevin Harvick has speculated that a Max Verstappen-NASCAR crossover could happen amid rumors that about the Red Bull Racing driver's future. There have even been claims that the Dutchman could retire from Formula 1 this year. If true, Harvick believes Verstappen could race with Trackhouse Racing's Project 91.

Project 91 is the Chevrolet-affiliated team's part-time Cup Series racecar created to bring renowned motorsports drivers to NASCAR. One of the program's candidates was 2007 F1 champion Kimi Raikkonnen, who drove the #91 Chevy at Watkins Glen in 2022 and Circuit of the Americas in 2023.

In addition to Project 91, Red Bull, Verstappen's F1 team, recently returned to the stock car racing series through Trackhouse Racing. The partnership had a shoot a few days ago where Connor Zilisch asked Verstappen if he wanted to hop in the #87 Red Bull Chevrolet, which Kevin Harvick touched on during the Happy Hour podcast.

The 2014 Cup Series champion argued that the Trackhouse Racing-Red Bull connection should allow Verstappen to enter a NASCAR race more easily.

“We've seen him run some of the other little races that he's done in the past. So I think that if he's not doing F1, I think it becomes a lot easier to open those doors.” [1:11]

He added:

“With Red Bull involved, I would say that that door for that to happen is probably way more open with Project 91 than it ever has been.”

This year, Max Verstappen is being challenged by the two McLaren F1 drivers, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, for the championship. He has earned four titles (2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024), making him the sixth driver to accomplish the feat.

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Kevin Harvick comments on Max Verstappen's attitude towards media questions

On the same podcast episode, Kevin Harvick stated that Max Verstappen is “polished” when answering questions from the media. One of them was Kyle Larson's claim that he was a better all-around driver than Verstappen.

The former Stewart-Haas Racing driver said (via the Happy Hour podcast):

“Listening to some of the comments and things that he would react to... all the ‘best driver in the world’ comments would get thrown at him and things like that, he's gotten pretty polished at the whole political side of how to answer things.” [0:55]

Max Verstappen won his fourth F1 championship in last year's Las Vegas GP - Source: Imagn

In response to Kyle Larson's comments last year, Max Verstappen brushed it off and said, “That's fine”. Verstappen went on to secure his fourth F1 World Championship, while Larson scored the most race wins in NASCAR that year.