DAYTONA BEACH — For nearly 24 hours at season’s end, two-plus weeks ago, Connor Zilisch was the picture of heartbreak in NASCAR.
He sat on the ground, alongside his race car, at the close of a season he thoroughly dominated, only to lose the Xfinity Series championship in a winner-take-all finale at Phoenix.
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After a 10-win rookie season — he won seven of eight at one point — he could only manage a third at Phoenix, where the championship went to race winner Jesse Love, whose only previous 2025 win came in the season opener at Daytona.
Connor Zilisch’s stellar 2025 season ended in disappointment when he finished third at the season finale in Phoenix.
Zilisch appeared devastated, but a day later, Denny Hamlin had the Cup race and his long-awaited championship snatched away as he was coasting to victory. His reaction seemed somewhere beyond devastation, something closer to resignation, that it’s just never going to go his way.
From the vantage point of some distance removed, Zilisch, just 19, again proved he’s dialed into a type of perspective others take longer to grasp.
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“I don’t think I’m in the same shoes, quite, as Denny. Denny has been trying at it for 20 years,” said Zilisch, who was at Daytona this past weekend for two days of testing a new Cadillac prototype ahead of January’s Rolex 24 — he was recently added to the driver roster of the Whelen Cadillac GTP team.
Connor Zilisch says Denny Hamlin “could feel” NASCAR championship before it disappeared
Hamlin was less than a minute away from cruising under the checkers as champ, but a late crash and caution brought pit stops, a restart and, ultimately, a sixth-place finish and another championship that got away.
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“He could feel what being a champion was like,” Zilisch said of Hamlin’s closing laps before the caution. “And I never really got that in the Xfinity race. I never thought I had the best car, never thought I had a chance to win it. I just felt like I was a third-place car all night, and that was it.
“But he got really close and got it taken away in an overtime restart. I can’t imagine what he went through. But I’ve got a lot more years ahead of me than behind me, and I think he’s the opposite.”
Denny Hamlin’s 20th Cup Series season brought him oh-so-close to that long-awaited championship.
Zilisch said he occasionally listens to Hamlin’s weekly “Actions Detrimental” podcast and enjoys it when he does.
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“I learn a lot from him,” Zilisch said. “He’s gotten a lot of hate over the years as a driver and the type of person he is, but I think deep down he wants the best for the sport.
“I feel bad. I really wanted to see him win that championship and I think a lot of people did. I can’t imagine what it was like for him, and I don’t think I can compare my emotions to what he felt.”
After Rolex 24, another rookie season awaits Connor Zilisch in NASCAR
Zilisch will get a closer look at Hamlin’s efforts next season. The young racer will be part of Trackhouse Racing’s three-driver lineup in the Cup Series for 2026, joining Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen. Two weeks after the Feb. 1 preseason Clash in Winston-Salem, the regular season starts, as always, with the Daytona 500, scheduled for Feb. 15.
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But before that, Zilisch will suit up for another Rolex 24, his third straight. He was part of a Rolex class win in 2024 as co-driver of an LMP2 effort fielded by Era Motorsport. This past year, he co-drove a GTD Trackhouse Corvette with an all-star lineup of fellow racers — van Gisbergen, Scott McLaughlin and Ben Keating. They finished ninth in GTD Pro.
Now he moves into the marquee GTP (Grand Touring Protype) class with the Whelen team that also includes drivers Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti.
The 2026 Rolex is scheduled for Saturday-Sunday, Jan. 24-25. It’ll be preceded the previous weekend by three days of testing known as the Roar Before the Rolex 24.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Connor Zilisch says Denny Hamlin NASCAR title heartbreak tops his
