Connor Zilisch and Shane van Gisbergen’s Scary Dominance Over the NASCAR Field Put Into Numbers

All the talk in the stock car racing world these past two weeks has been about how good Shane van Gisbergen is. The New Zealander won the Cup Series races at Chicago and Sonoma on consecutive Sundays to prove himself as the best road course driver in the field today. While every driver who races on Sundays bent the knee to him, one who takes the wheel on Saturdays outright refused to do so.

18-year-old Connor Zilisch gave van Gisbergen the battle of his life in the Xfinity Series races at both venues. In Chicago, he was up there fighting for the win till the final lap before getting shoved out of the way to end as the runner-up. He made amends for that disappointment at Sonoma by defeating the Supercars champion in a prolonged battle marked by multiple lead changes between the two.

In the wake of the battle in the southern Sonoma mountains, it came to light that the two drivers had simply outclassed the rest of the field by an unbelievable margin. Just how good were they? Between them, the two set the 45 fastest laps of the race. Van Gisbergen set his fastest lap on Lap 32 with a time of 1:16.860, while Zilisch clocked his best on Lap 34 at 1:16.909.