The hype around Connor Zilisch’s full-time Cup debut was impossible to ignore. There were comparisons to Jeff Gordon and Joey Logano. But so far, the results haven’t matched the noise, something that Kevin Harvick didn’t shy away from pointing out.

Kevin Harvick unravels Connor Zilisch’s performance graph

In the recent Happy Hour podcast, the former Cup Series driver shed light on how Zilisch failed to make use of his opportunity and shine for Trackhouse Racing. Despite having a fast car, the former JR Motorsports star could not bring home ample points, resulting in a poor start to his new campaign.

“I think at the end of COTA, I think Connor Zillich had the fastest car. To be perfectly honest with you, I think he was the fastest car on the racetrack and got in two unfortunate positions,” Harvick said. “I think at Phoenix and Vegas, I think we saw the reality of the Cup series for Connor and how hard it’s going to be.”

After winning 11 races in the Xfinity Series last year, Trackhouse Racing roped him in for a Cup Series season and put him in the #88 car by replacing Shane van Gisbergen (Trackhouse moved SVG to the #97 car). Talks and expectations were immense for the teenage driver.

However, Zilisch experienced his first major incident in the Cup Series when he was involved in one of the major crashes at the Daytona 500. While exiting Turn 4 in Stage 2, the Trackhouse man got loose and triggered a multi-car wreck.

Zilisch’s wreck collected Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs, and Austin Dillon, and as a result, he finished the race in 33rd place, picking up just five points. In Atlanta, he started the race from 31st place and was involved in another multi-car wreck, resulting in a 30th-place finish.

Things did not go his way much at COTA as he spun in Stage 2. Despite this, Connor Zilisch managed to get back to 14th place. At Phoenix, Zilisch started from 19th place, but contact with Ryan Preece hindered his race.

In the latest Las Vegas race, Zilisch failed to brake hard and slammed into the back of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., resulting in a 32nd-place finish. Currently, the rookie is in 35th place in the Drivers’ Standings with 50 points, the lowest for a full-time Cup driver who raced all five races.

Zilisch’s average start position is 26.4, and his average finish position is 27.6. Notably, Zilisch’s downgrade in performance came at a time when Trackhouse Racing is regarded as one of the best teams in the Cup Series, something Shane van Gisbergen believes in.

Shane van Gisbergen confident about Trackhouse’s performance lift

Trackhouse Racing star Shane van Gisbergen is confident about the team’s recent rise in terms of performance and sheds light on how they made little progress one at a time.

“I feel like we’re eighth to 15th most weeks, which probably doesn’t sound like a lot but we started tracks running 30th, so it’s been a huge improvement. I’m pretty stoked about that but still a long way to go,” SVG said.

Following this, he highlighted how he was able to extract maximum points at odd situations. With this, he also mentioned that SVG would want to have a clean weekend to visualise the rise in performance.

“I feel like we’ve been able to execute and get the most out of our situations, which is awesome. Atlanta was a yo-yo. The leaderboard for us was up and down. Pretty cool to do the same at Phoenix last week, but it would be nice to have a trouble-free day,” he further added.

After five races, SVG is in 16th place with 117 points. With a top five and two top 10s, his average start position has been 17.6, and his average finish position has been 17. Another Trackhouse driver, Ross Chastain, is in 20th place with 94 points.