Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch are the two names that turn up on the leaderboard in any road course race today. Except for their mastery of the circuits, there isn’t a lot of commonality between these two extremes of drivers. On Saturday, friction threatened to appear between them after Zilisch made a questionable move to win the Xfinity Series race.
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Track limits have been a huge issue at Watkins Glen over the past few years. Several icons, like Steve Letarte, have made a case for why track limits ought to be enforced strictly. Zilisch, with 18 laps left in the Mission 200 at The Glen, proved them right.
The 19-year-old blew the corner in Turn 6 and went really wide to the outside of van Gisbergen, as they were fighting for the lead. Zilisch tried getting back on the racing surface, and with no room left, he clipped his JR Motorsports teammate and sent him into the wall of Turn 7.
There was little van Gisbergen could have done, considering he was just trying to protect his position. So, in many ways, any anger against the youngster would have been justified. But he has no such feelings of saltiness or frustration.
Speaking to Dale Earnhardt Jr., the owner of JR Motorsports, on his podcast, the Kiwi said, “Firstly, sorry to junk one of your beautiful race cars. I had more time to reflect, and that’s kind of where the racing is different here.
“In every other racing series in the world, if someone goes off the track, it’s their problem. They have to get back on safely. Whereas here, it’s on both of you to let the racing continue and give racing room.”
SVG detailed how Zilisch had been completely patient with him until he went around on the outside and then came back in. He was under the impression that he had given Zilisch enough space to get back on the track. But ultimately, that proved to be wrong.
He continued, “It was just a misjudgment or racing incident, really, but a catastrophic result. I was defending pretty hard. I went back to the middle of the road so that I could pinch him and I’d get a good run on the front straight. I was going to clear him again. And he just misjudged coming back on. But yeah, so it was both our faults really.”
Van Gisbergen, being the experienced icon that he is, appears to know precisely how an upcoming youngster with a ton of talent should be handled.
