Best Driver ESPY Award nominees revealed for 2021
By Asher Fair
The four nominees for this year’s Best Driver ESPY Award have been announced. Who represents NASCAR, Formula 1 and IndyCar?
They were not awarded in 2020 due to COVID-19-related restrictions, but the ESPY Awards have returned for 2021.
For the 28th time, a driver will win the Best Driver ESPY when these awards are handed out on Saturday, July 10.
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Because they were not awarded last year, the reigning winner of this particular award is NASCAR’s Kyle Busch, who won the award in 2019 before going on to win his second Cup Series title.
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The four nominees for this year’s Best Driver ESPY Award are reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott, four-time reigning and seven-time Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton, reigning and six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon, and two-time reigning and four-time NHRA Pro Stock champion Erica Enders.
This is Elliott’s first nomination. It is the seventh for both Hamilton and Dixon, a new all-time record; they had been tied with John Force with six. Nobody else has been nominated more than four times. It is Enders’s third. You can vote here.
NASCAR drivers have won the award twice in a row.
Busch won it in 2019 after 2017 champion Martin Truex Jr. won it in 2018. The last time a non-NASCAR driver won the award was in 2017, when Hamilton won it before going on to win his fourth world title.
The last time an IndyCar driver won the award was in 2014, after Ryan Hunter-Reay won the Indy 500. He had won it 2013 as well after winning the 2012 title.
Unless you include CART in a separate category from IndyCar, no non-NASCAR, Formula 1 or IndyCar driver has ever won the award. CART drivers won in 1994, 1995 and 1997: Nigel Mansell, Al Unser Jr. and Jimmy Vasser won the award those years, respectively.
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Tune in to ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, July 10 for the live broadcast of the ESPYS.