Sunday's Pennzoil 400 NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway featured just one caution flag other than the two to end the first two stages, and it was for an incident involving Trackhouse Racing rookie Connor Zilisch and Hyak Motorsports' Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Zilisch finished the race in 32nd place, three laps off the lead lap, and because of it, he fell to 35th place in the point standings. Among full-time drivers, he's now ahead of only Hendrick Motorsports' Alex Bowman, and Bowman has been sidelined for the past two races, plus part of a third, with vertigo. There is still no timetable on a potential return.
For the driver whom many have dubbed the best Cup Series prospect since Jeff Gordon, the fact that he's now last among drivers to run every race illustrates just how much the start of the season has been nothing shy of a baptism by fire at NASCAR's top level.
Connor Zilisch has a steep hill to climb
On paper, Zilisch probably shouldn't be last; he is just two points behind Haas Factory Team's Cole Custer and Rick Ware Racing's Cody Ware, and we all saw him carve through the field twice at Circuit of the Americas (COTA), after getting caught up in incidents that sent him to the back. He had an easy top five finish wrapped up without those incidents but could only finish 14th.
On the ovals, it was always expected that Zilisch would take time to adjust. He won six of his eight non-oval races in the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series in 2024 and 2025, yet it took him until his 16th oval start to find victory lane. He then won five out of seven.
It's no secret that the 19-year-old Charlotte, North Carolina native hasn't been strong on the ovals so far in 2026, collecting only two stage points, although it's also not a stretch to say that Trackhouse Racing are really only a mid-pack team on such layouts at the moment.
But even aside from that, Zilisch has been caught up in incidents in every single oval race he's run. His best finish is only a 29th place, and that wasn't even a finish; it was a DNF. He's already 67 points below the "Chase" playoff cut line.
In his only two Cup Series oval starts in the fourth Trackhouse Racing car a year ago, his first two oval starts at the Cup level, he finished 23rd and 11th. Those results aren't anything spectacular, but they're still good enough to make it obvious that he is probably not a driver who will be last in the standings for long in 2026.
The hype surrounding Zilisch is completely justified. The decision to make him one of the preseason favorites to win the championship as a rookie, on the other hand, was not.
Two things can be true. We've always been curious about what the media reaction would look like to Zilisch if he didn't immediately hit the ground running and contend for wins straight from the get-go, given just how much he's been hyped up over the past year or so. One month into the 2026 season, we are now getting that chance.
But much of that chance comes from the fact that Zilisch hasn't truly yet had his.
Zilisch finished sixth in the 2025 O'Reilly Series race at Darlington Raceway, which is scheduled to host this Sunday's Goodyear 400 Cup Series race at 3:00 p.m. ET, in sixth place. Can the rookie turn it around this weekend? Start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss any of the action on Fox Sports 1!