Kevin Harvick praises “confident” Chase Elliott for impressive COTA run
2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick shared his feelings about Chase Elliott’s performance in 2025 so far.
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Kevin Harvick and Chase Elliott (Via IMAGO)
Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott came into the 2025 season hoping for redeeming run, after missing out on the playoffs last season. One of his best performances of the year so far came at Circuit of the Americas, where he finished P4 and secured enough points that placed him P5 in the championship table.
2014 Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick was really impressed with the performance of the No:9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy driver. He pointed out Chase Elliott and his team did an impressive job on Sunday at COTA, with the strategy earning him good points alongside a placing him in a position to win the race towards the end.
Well, his team did a great job. You know, they fixed the car up, they played some strategy to get some points there in the one stage and wound up pitting there at the end for fresher tires and wound up with good restarts and made up some track position. Somehow wound up fourth.
Kevin Harvick said via Happy Hour podcast.
The veteran further pointed out that the car and the confident driver had the capability to win the race at COTA, which helped them to bounce back to finish inside the top-5. Harvick also highlighted how confident Elliott was even before the start of the race.
I don’t know how they did that with everything that happened and they worked on throughout the day. But 9 car, I felt like he had a car to win. Lot of confidence out of Chase Elliott. Just the way that he talked about himself and his team prerace and we’ve seen their success early in the season with his confidence and the speed in the car. To come back and finish fourth was pretty impressive.
Kevin Harvick added.
Kevin Harvick gives his verdict on Conor Zilisch’s Cup debut
The COTA race marked the Cup debut of Trackhouse Racing’s development driver Conor Zilisch, who is one of the most talented youngsters in the NASCAR scene. An early race wreck featuring Daniel Suarez ended his race, but no one is concerned about the star drivers’ skills and capability.
Talking about the racer’s performance, Harvick pointed out that based on Zilisch’s lap speed he was capable of securing a top-10 finish. The veteran pointed out that the youngster would have had the best road course racer of his career if not for the wreck.
I thought, based on Connor’s lap times, I thought he could have run in the middle of the top 10, P5 to P7, P5 to P8, somewhere right in that range, from a speed standpoint. I felt like it would’ve been the best racing experience that he’s ever got on a road course, back to front, because of the talent.
Kevin Harvick said.
The comments from Harvick shows how highly the youngster is regarded in the NASCAR community owing to the impressive runs he has over the years in the lower divisions. It would be interesting to see how Conor Zilisch is going to perform in the upcoming Cup starts as well as the Xfinity races.
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