2023 Corvette Z06 Wins Car and Driver’s 2023 Lightning Lap Competition

Built to dominate at the track, that’s precisely what the 2023 Corvette Z06 did in this long-running competition.

The 2023 Corvette Z06 has garnered all kinds of praise since its launch, proving to live up to the immense hype that preceded it – not an easy task by any means. The latest Z06 is a true beast of a performance car that’s equally capable of accelerating rapidly in a straight line and carving up corners on the track, and as such, everyone knew that it was going to be a bit of a ringer at Car and Driver‘s annual Lighting Lap competition, which pits a whole bunch of new vehicles against each other at Virginia International Raceway to test their prowess. And that’s precisely what it did at the 2023 version of this long-running test.

It’s not that the 2023 Corvette Z06 faced a group of cream puff competitors, either – this year’s lineup included cars like the Lamborghini Huracán Tecnica, Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS, and BMW C4 CSL, to name just a few. There were also a host of far less expensive machines like the newest Honda Civic Type R, Toyota GR Corolla, and BMW i4 M50, but let’s be honest – they’re fun, but featherweights compared to cars like the 2023 Corvette Z06.

When the dust settled, the Z06 – which is fully loaded in this case, with the Z07 package and carbon fiber goodies – managed a best lap time of 2:38.6, which topped every single entrant in this year’s Lightning Lap. However, what’s even more impressive about that figure is that it’s also the fifth fastest lap in the event’s entire history – which has taken place at VIR since 2006 – and it’s also the fastest lap for any naturally-aspirated vehicle at LL, ever. Needless to say, the C&D crew came away mighty impressed.

“There’s almost no understeer at any speed, and the chassis is so balanced that you can easily adjust the nose grip by feeding in brake pressure,” Car and Driver noted. “The willingness to turn in is so pronounced that we ran the car in the heaviest steering setting, not because it offered any more feel than the other modes but because the heavier on-center effort offered a little more resistance to diving into a corner.”

On top of that, the oil temperature barely rose during 10 hard laps, a reassuring result that can be credited to GM engineers, who added heat exchangers to counteract problems with main bearing hot spots occurring near redline during testing. As such, it performs flawlessly on the track – as it should – and also just so happens to be the fastest car C&D tested this year, too.

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