The Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Has Been Around The Nürburgring, And It Looks Quick

The Nürburgring lap time. Love it or hate it, it’s a bigger than ever bragging right for the world’s performance car manufacturers. Just look at the records that have been laid down in the last year alone – the Ford Mustang GTD is the fastest American car, the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra the fastest production EV, and the Mercedes-AMG One the fastest production car overall.
There’s one of-the-moment performance machine we’re yet to see sent around the fearsome 12.9-mile German track, though: the C8 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1. A teaser posted to Chevrolet’s Instagram account, though, suggests that that might be about to change, and it could have a couple of those records in its sights. Not the EV one, obviously.
The clip shows a yellow ZR1, complete with the optional carbon fibre aero pack, ripping around part of the circuit, its 5.5-litre twin-turbo V8 making a distinctively un-American sound as it downshifts into a bend thanks to its flat-plane crank.
Evidently, then, the car has been around the ’Ring, which generally means we can expect a time to be announced soon. There might be more to it than that, though. Reading between the lines, Chevrolet posted the clip on 28 June. That, in the inexplicably backwards way that America writes its dates, is 6/28.

Obviously, it could be pure coincidence, but is Chevy hinting that the ZR1 has posted a 6:28 time around the Nürburgring? It would be a massive win for the manufacturer if so – the current production car record is 6:29.090, set by the AMG One, which uses an actual Formula 1 powertrain and kicks out a peak of 1049bhp.
Then again, the ZR1 has been nipping at the heels of hypercars since it launched last year. It knocks out 1064bhp, even more power than the One, and in its slipperier form, without the aero kit, has been clocked at 233mph. There’s also a chance that this isn’t a ZR1, but the newly revealed ZR1X, which pairs the base car’s powertrain with an electric motor on the front axle, giving it all-wheel drive and a peak of 1250bhp.

Whether or not it has nabbed that record, we’re expecting the ZR1 – or indeed the ZR1X – to be properly quick around the ’Ring. We’ll be paying close attention to Chevy’s socials to see just what time it’s posted.
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