Denny Hamlin reacts to discouraged Connor Zilisch in rookie Cup season, offers advice

Denny Hamlin is hopeful that Connor Zilisch can turn things around in the NASCAR Cup Series. On this week’s Actions Detrimental, Hamlin reacted to Zilisch’s rough start to his rookie season.

“Connor is not performing like we thought,” Denny Hamlin said. “If Ross [Chastain] is my comp, I’d say Connor’s really running about the offset to Ross that you think he would run. The problem is Ross is 15 spots worse than what you would project. They have plenty of time to turn it around, which I’m sure they will.

Hamlin was then asked how a driver like Connor Zilisch overcomes the issues he’s having and have better finishes. “You just stay the course,” Hamlin replied. “That’s my advice is that you just keep rowing the boat. Eventually, may the river flow and hit you in the ass, and you start going downriver. I don’t know. I think some of it comes with time. I don’t know how much of it is Connor, how much of it is car. If his teammate were up there winning races and whatnot, I would throw more of a caution to the Zilisch thing, but I just think that they’re struggling as an organization right now, and I think they would admit that.”

Connor Zilisch reacts to winning the Bristol O’Reilly Series race

In eight Cup Series races this year, Zilisch has not recorded a top-10 finish. His best performance was at COTA, where he finished 14th. The only other time Zilisch has finished inside the top 20 was at Darlington (P18).

Zilisch joined Trackhouse Racing this season after spending the 2025 season with JR Motorsports as part of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. Last season, Zilisch won the regular-season title and finished second in the overall standings.

On Saturday, Zilisch competed in the Bristol O’Reilly Series race and held off Kyle Larson for the win.  “It’s been a tough past two weeks for me in the Cup Series, and it feels good to come back down here into the O’Reilly Series and prove that I can still do it,” Zilisch said after the race, per Reid Spencer of NASCAR.com.

“It’s tough. You finish in the back every week, and you forget who you are. This feels good. We played strategy. Rodney made a great call to keep us out. The tires weren’t wearing much all night, and we were able to get our (No. 1) Roto-Rooter Chevrolet in the track position that I needed to go out and win the race.”