Courtesy of NASCAR at COTA Media Relations
AUSTIN, Texas – The rapid rise of Connor Zilisch continued Friday at Circuit of The Americas (COTA).
Less than six months after winning his NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) debut at Watkins Glen, and just two days before he makes his first NASCAR Cup Series (NCS) start, the 18-year-old captured the pole for Saturday’s Focused Health 250 NXS race (1:30 p.m. CT, TV: CW, Radio: PRN, SiriusXM) on the National Course with a lap time of 97.262 seconds at 88.832 miles per hour.
The Mooresville, N.C. native paced a stellar qualifying performance by JR Motorsports, which earned four of the top five qualifying positions. NCS full-time driver Ross Chastain, driving for JR Motorsports, will join Zilisch on the front row. Teammates Justin Allgaier took fourth and Carson Kvapil was fifth.
NCS regular William Byron, driving a Hendrick Motorsports entry, was the only driver to break through the JR Motorsports stranglehold by qualifying third.
“I think we’re going to have a really good car here,” Zilisch told media after qualifying. “It’s fun to have Ross here to push me to my limits. I’ve just got to go out and do my job. At the end of the day, it’s executing that’s going to win the race.”
After posting the fastest lap in Friday’s practice, the young hot shoe backed up his performance by outpacing the field by 0.184 seconds on the 17-turn, 2.4-mile circuit in qualifying.
“It’s a really good start to the weekend. It’s been a really rough start to the year, so getting some momentum is much-needed,” said Zilisch, who makes his NCS debut with Trackhouse Racing with practice and qualifying Saturday. “Tomorrow’s going to be a little tougher… first time in a Cup car, the people around me, the noise. I’m just going to have to keep doing my thing. I’m excited to see what the Cup car is like tomorrow, but it’s going to be tough to stay calm.”
With a strong showing in EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix NCS qualifying Saturday, Zilisch is looking to become the youngest driver to make a NCS start since Joey Logano in 2008.
IMSA’s VP Racing SportsCar Challenge (IMSA), making its debut at the NASCAR at COTA weekend, also had qualifying Friday and will have a pair of races Saturday at 8:40 a.m. and 5 p.m. The top five in IMSA qualifying are as follows:
P3 class: Oscar Tunjo, Valentino Catalano, Jonathan Woolridge, Brian Thienes, Mirco Schultis.
GTDX class: Jake Walker, Adam Adelson, Matias Perez Companc, AJ Muss, Samantha Tan.
GSX class: Kiko Porto, Ian Porter, Steven Clemons, Chris Waltz, Patrick Wilmot.
Earlier in the day Friday, Trackhouse Racing teammates Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen joined Speedway Motorsports’ Senior VP of Operations and Development Steve Swift to host media on a tour of COTA’s new 2.4-mile National Course layout. The drivers pointed out the challenges presented by the new cut through from turns 6A to 6B, which cuts about a mile off of the Full Course layout that they’ve run the past four years.
