2019 Corvette ZR1 Ran a Very Unofficial 7:12 at the Nurburgring
2019 Corvette ZR1 Ran a Very Unofficial 7:12 at the Nurburgring
Fans with stopwatches insist that the new Corvette ZR1 failed to get anywhere near the expected six-minute range.
We learned last week that General Motors was testing the 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 at the Nurburgring without any camo and, now, the 755-horsepower supercar is back on the 12.9-mile track. With cars being delivered to buyers, all of the pre-production testing is done, so this car must be involved in a Nordschleife record run, but based on these unofficial numbers – no records were being set on Monday morning.
Trackside timers
The only official time for the 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 will come from General Motors via an on-board timing system, but when there is high performance traffic on the Nurburgring, there are spectators with stopwatches stationed along the side of the track. On Monday morning, the folks at BridgeToGantry.com spoke with a handful of these amateur timing fans at the 13th turn of the fabled Nordschleife, and they agreed that the C7 ZR1 was only able to muster a lap time of 7 minutes and 12 seconds.
That is good, but far from the expected pace. Uh-oh.
Other fast Chevys
The current Camaro ZL1 1LE turned in a best time of 7:16.04 and the new Corvette ZR1 was expected to get much closer to the six-minute range, if not getting into that elite time bracket. The ZR1 has more than a hundred more horsepower than the ZL1, and the Corvette weighs considerably less than the Camaro. However, based on these unofficial timers, the LT5-powered supercar was only four seconds faster than the LT4-powered muscle car. What’s going on here?
GM has never announced an official Nurburgring time for the Z06, but the magazine Sport Auto tested the LT4-powered Corvette (as they do with many vehicles), and the German publication ran a 7:13.9. The reported times from yesterday morning are less than two seconds better than the magazine’s time for the Z06, making it clear that the ZR1 has far more in it.
Expect better
Based on the Nordschleife times for the Camaro ZL1 and the Corvette Z06 with Sport Auto, the 2019 Corvette ZR1 almost certainly has a quicker lap in it. There are rumors that there was localized rain on some portions of the track, but the Porsche 911 GT3RS was on the track at the same time, running laps in the high six-minute range, so it wasn’t having issues with a wet surface.
There is also the possibility that on the timed lap, the Corvette ZR1 got stuck behind a slower-moving vehicle or ran into some other issue that led to slower-than-expected times.
In any case, our safe money says that when GM announces the official Nurburgring Nordschleife lap time, it will be a whole lot better than a 7:12.
