Denny Hamlin nominates NASCAR's wonderkid to end SVG's road course dominance

Denny Hamlin recently revealed the NASCAR driver who can challenge Shane Van Gisbergen on road courses. The Trackhouse Racing driver won Sunday's race at Watkins Glen, marking his fourth win of the season.

Interestingly, all four of Gisbergen's wins have come at road courses. The only road course on which he didn't win this year, COTA, he finished in 6th spot.

SVG's dominance on road courses prompted Denny Hamlin to be asked on Actions Detrimental whether a younger driver can compete with the Kiwi driver. The JGR driver was further asked to give his thoughts on the idea of there being SVG dominance on road courses until the Next Gen car changes.

"Well, I think he wins road courses for the foreseeable future. But I mean in straight up equipment, Connor's beating him in Xfinity. So you would say that what could be coming is is essentially a kind of a one-two battle there," Denny Hamlin said. [16:15]

He mentioned that the Cup car and the tires in those cars react 'a lot differently' to those in the Xfinity car, where Zilisch is 'good.' Hamlin further claimed that the young driver has also fine-tuned his skills in the Xfinity car.

"It's likely that these two will be head and shoulders still above the field and likely the only battle you'll have is between those two to figure out who's going to win the road course race that day in unless something wacky happens," Hamlin claimed.

He added that it would be the 'only way' that SVG doesn't win on road courses.

Denny Hamlin comments on Connor Zilisch's scary fall in Watkins Glen victory lane

Following his win in the Watkins Glen Xfinity race, Connor Zilisch suffered an accident in the victory lane. As the young driver was climbing onto the roof of his car, he slipped and fell to the ground, leading to a broken collarbone.

Speaking about this incident on his podcast, Denny Hamlin claimed he heard the news about Zilisch's fall and watched the video. But because of bad network coverage in his area, the video paused at one point beyond which Hamlin couldn't figure out further.

He claimed that if he were in Zilisch's place, he'd still be in a hospital. Hamlin further added that after watching his fall, he would think twice before standing on top of his car again.