What…? The Corvette ZR1X is faster than the GT3 RS around the 'Ring
Corvette recently booked a little holiday to its favourite foreign testing ground in Germany, but this time a stopwatch was in the carry-on, and testing wasn’t the only focus of this trip. Corvette is no stranger to the Green Hell; only its more recent outings were angled towards testing and development. This time, the C8, in all its fancier configurations, is throwing serious numbers at the production lap time leaderboard, which is sure to upset some brands closer to the continental U.S.
When Ford's GTD took to the Nurburgring, the spotlight was hot. Weeks of testing and endless spy shots had the world waiting patiently for news that the brand's goal was met. Beat the Porsche 992.1 911 GT3 RS’s 6:49.328 time. But as days passed, this news never arrived, and Ford finally accepted defeat with a still rapid time of 6:52.700.
Now Corvette, without openly mentioning it, must have had the GTD buried in its sights, and well, the results speak for themselves. It brought three of its latest special edition performance models, and the slowest of the three, the Z06 driven by Aaron Link, didn’t make too many waves with a time of 7:11.826. It wasn’t as fast as Christian Gebhardt’s 2024 Z06 outing with a time of 7:10.52, but it keeps it in the running with the likes of the Dodge Viper ACR and AMG GT R. This is still astounding considering it’s the slowest car the brand brought.
The second model to take on the 20.832km monster is the ZR1. Praised overseas for its impressive yet clinical performance, the ZR1 was, we thought, Corvette's fastest C8, until the ZR1X blessed our eyes. With a time of 6:50.763 with Brian Wallace at the helm, the ZR1 set a lightning-fast lap, beating the Porsche GT2 RS and the Ford GTD, but it didn’t end there.
The ZR1X is the talk of the town, shaving a further 1.488 seconds off the ZR1's time, thanks to improved downforce, bigger power, and lighter weight. Setting a time of 6:49.275 with Drew Cattell behind the wheel, the ZR1X placed fourth on the production car leaderboard. It's some time off the AMG One's time of 6:29.090, the Porsche 911 GT2 RS Manthey at 6:43.300, and the AMG GT Black Series at 6:48.047. In other words, this Corvette is an absolute weapon. You can read more about the ZR1X here.
The news that comes from the Nürburgring is rarely surprising, but having a Corvette in the top five production cars is not something I expected to write. Speculation, though, seems to be the truth, and this C8 moves, but it's the way in which Corvette achieved it that's quite unusual. Unlike its Ford rival, it arrived, achieved, and disappeared without much media attention at all.
To add the icing to this all-American cake, the 911 GT3 RS (992.1), Ford’s GTD target, was only 0.053 seconds slower than the ZR1X, which, on a track this long, is a margin that a couple mosquitos hitting the windscreen can create. Nevertheless, it’s a treat to put a number to this car’s ridiculous power. I’m sure Porsche is now buzzing to get an official GT3 RS Manthey lap time to set the record straight.
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