Zilisch earns first career top 10 NASCAR Cup Series finish at Sonoma

Rookie Connor Zilisch picked up his first career top ten NASCAR Cup Series finish at Sonoma Raceway.

Zilisch finished in seventh in what could become a turnaround following a string of bad luck this season.

His strength on road courses has shown glimmers of success so far in his rookie season, but the finishing results haven’t shown much in the first three road courses this year.

At Circuit of the Americas, he finished 14th in what could’ve been a top five result after getting spun twice. At Watkins Glen, Zilisch was running in second in the closing laps before a tire went down. He finished 20th.

At Coronado, he led his first ever laps in cup before he got caught in an early stage two crash with Austin Hill and Shane Van Gisbergen, taking him out of the race.

Zilisch finally had a finish at Sonoma that could show how well he ran all day.

He qualified in 17th, but struggled to move up through the field in stage one. He pitted before the end of the stage and finished 21st. Due to the flipped strategy, he restarted in eighth and was able to move up and maintain track position. He got as high as third before crew chief Stephen Doran flipped strategy again for him.

The majority of the field flipped their strategy before the end of stage two and Zilisch still finished eighth.

Zilisch started the final stage in second and stayed in the top five for the majority of the stage, despite a slow pit exit during green flag pit stops. Zilisch however fell out of the top five with four laps to go. He held on to finish seventh.

In a post race interview with TNT, Zilisch said, “I’m really proud of my No. 88 team its been rough lately, so a day like this although we could’ve been better is one we’ll take.”

With no more road courses on the cup schedule for the rest of the year, Zilisch is hoping to continue momentum going into Chicagoland and the rest of the schedule full of ovals.