Connor Zilisch’s recently confirmed move to Trackhouse Racing for the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series has prompted huge excitement throughout the sport, with expectations sky high for the 19-year-old Red Bull athlete.

Zilisch’s move from developmental driver to full-time driver of the No. 99 Chevrolet was announced with his remarkable debut Xfinity Series season still ongoing. With nine races remaining, he leads the series via his seven wins with JR Motorsports, although his most recent victory came largely thanks to Parker Kligerman, who subbed in during the Wawa 250 at Daytona with the youngster still recovering from collarbone surgery.

Among Zilisch’s biggest cheerleaders is 2014 Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick, who was thanked by the JRM driver during his press conference on Saturday. Fast forward to Monday, and the 60-time Cup Series race winner lauded the youngster’s potential on the ‘Harvick’s Happy Hour‘ podcast, agreeing with co-host Mamba Smith’s suggestion that Zilisch is comparable to one of NASCAR’s all-time greats, Jeff Gordon.

“I mean, Connor Zilisch could have went to F1 and been the American F1 racer,” Harvick claimed. “He was the most recent miss by Formula 1. And just the fact that we were racing go-karts and we’d kind of steered these kids. These kids had no interest. They didn’t even know what NASCAR was. They wanted to go down that F1 road.

“And, so, luckily we steered him into, into NASCAR, but Connor Zilisch, not only could he make it here, but he could have been the American F1 driver to go over and be competitive in an F1 car.”

Despite Zilisch’s outstanding track record and ceiling, Harvick did note, however, that moving into the Cup Series full-time will take some adjusting, calling it “a whole different animal.”

“You’ve got more pressure, more media, more money, more distractions, and the competition is by far the most that you will ever have,” he noted. “So you’re going to have a new team around him. You’re going to have a lot of challenges, but he is the most polished, the most well-rounded young driver that’s come to the Cup Series in a long time since Jeff Gordon.”

A four-time Cup Series champion with 93 race wins – the third most of all-time – Gordon represents a daunting yardstick of success to be compared to. However, Zilisch’s track record backs this bold claim, given that he has won at almost every level, including the Xfinity, ARCA Menards, CARS Late Models, and IMSA, among other series.

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Harvick was also confident that Zilisch would go down a storm with fans, calling him “the type of person that everybody wants to root for” with “a great demeanor in a way that he carries himself.”

What Zilisch also has going for him is his coachability, with Harvick lauding his intelligence.

“He understands the data. He can coach himself,” Harvick said. “He can look at the data. He can compare it to somebody else and say, ‘I need to do that.’ And then he can go execute it. That’s what racing is in today’s world. Are you coachable?

“You’re going to be under criticism from the time that you get into racing. If it’s done appropriately, you’re going to be criticized and you’re going to be compared to other people. He can compare himself. He can criticize himself, and he can go out and execute those changes on the racetrack to make himself faster and better and know how to do that.”