Connor Zilisch’s rookie season has been a nightmare for him. Placed 34th in standings, with eight DNFs, there’s little to cheer for him. Yet amid his lowest point of his career so far, he’s bagged a big opportunity to make amends to his rookie year slump.

Zilisch is all set to join Hendrick Motorsports in 2028 as the next driver of the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet. And his soon to be teammate Chase Elliott shared his take on Zilisch’s struggles this year.

“I think Connor’s gonna change a lot before he gets there, or before he gets over here to run. I think that’s all really good, and he has time to continue to work on his craft. If you went and talked to him today, you’re gonna get a different version of him when it comes time to actually get to Daytona, and I think all that will be for the better. He has a lot of talent, obviously, that’s been shown at different points in his career,” Chase told Frontstretch in an interview.

Many of Zilisch’s poor results have stemmed from factors outside pure performance. He has been collected in multi-car incidents at Chicagoland, spun after contact at Michigan, and sidelined by mechanical failures such as a brake rotor explosion at Nashville.

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It’s been a tough year for Trackhouse Racing as well. Ross Chastain hasn’t won a race and sits outside the top 16. Had it not been for SVG’s two wins at road course, it would’ve been a dire situation for the team. But they certainly have a lot of work to do to get their oval program back on track. And even Elliott acknowledged that Zilisch’s slump year isn’t entirely his fault.

“I know this year hadn’t gone like he wanted it to, and some of that’s been his fault, some of it hasn’t, a lot of it hasn’t really. So I’m excited to see where it goes. Again, it’s a long way off, and what that will be or won’t be, nobody’s gonna know until we kinda get going and get working together and really see some of that first-hand,” Chase said in the same interview.

Now Zilisch will remain with Trackhouse through next season. HMS has a history of allowing young drivers time to develop within a stable, high-resource environment. Corey Day is one of those drivers in HMS. It’s true that the expectations will be high once Zilisch joins HMS, but eventually we will get to know in 2028 whether he’ll be able to meet those expectations or not. Until then, Zilisch will have some time to regain his lost touch.