Not one, but five. Chevrolet’s Corvette ZR1 has blitzed the timing boards at five American circuits, setting the fastest production car lap at Road America, Road Atlanta, Watkins Glen, and both the Full Course and Grand Course at Virginia International Raceway (VIR).

The car used was a pre-production example, equipped with the optional ZTK package, which adds an enlarged rear wing, a Gurney flap, front dive planes, and underbody strakes to increase downforce. Stiffer springs, carbon-ceramics brakes on all four corners and Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R tyres complete the track-focused upgrades. 

1,064bhp and 828lb-ft (1,123Nm) of torque also helps against the stopwatch, courtesy of the ZR1’s 5.5-litre twin-turbocharged V8. All that is sent to the rear wheels via an eight-speed DCT. 

A team of four General Motors (GM) development drivers set the pace at each of the circuits. At VIR, the Full Course time of 1:47.7 marks a 3.6-second improvement over the previous record holder, the C7-generation Corvette ZR1. The Grand Course breaks up the long back straight with a challenging infield section, where mechanical grip matters as much as power and downforce. The time of 2:32.2 eclipses the time set by the McLaren Senna by 2.7 seconds.

Aaron Link, Global Vehicle Performance Manager, was at the wheel for both record runs and had been a part of developing the production ZR1. In 2023, lapping VIR in a prototype, he was matching the pace of the McLaren Senna “without trying.” Link said: “This told us we weren’t just going to clip these records – we were going to smash them.” Smash them he did.

VIR Full Course Lap

VIR Grand Course Lap

Road America saw Brian Wallace take the helm of the ZR1. Wallace is the Chief Vehicle Dynamics Engineer for GM, alongside his role as Chief Performance Driving Instructor – he’s the man who trains the test and evaluation drivers.

Speaking about the challenge, Wallace said: “I hadn’t driven the car at Road America before, but I knew the track well. I knew where I wanted to place the car in every corner on the track. The challenge was dialing into the extra speed I had going into the corners compared to my previous trips to Road America. I had to back up my brake markers everywhere. In the ZR1, they come up on you so damn fast.”

An amateur racer himself, Wallace set himself an ambitious challenge of recording a 2:09 lap time at VIR. His third full-speed lap came in at 2:08.6, beating the previous record set by the Porsche 911 GT3 RS by 5.2 seconds.

Road America Lap

Taking on Watkins Glen with the ZR1 was Bill Wise, a Chassis Control Engineer. He’s got quite the day job, testing every new Corvette to make sure it performs well on track. One circuit that he’d never driven in real life was The Glen, but plenty of simulator preparation allowed him to set the new benchmark of 1:52.6 at the end of the first day.

Following his run, Wise said: “I’ve got a pile of excuses that say I could have gone faster. It really says something about the car that I can go to a track I’ve never driven before, and in under a day, get the lap time.”

Watkins Glen Lap

Finally, Road Atlanta. Home to the annual Petit Le Mans 10-hour endurance race, the Corvette was piloted around the 2.54-mile track by ZR1 Lead Development Engineer, Chris Barber. The production car record was once held by the C7 Corvette ZR1, taken by the Porsche 911 GT2 RS, and the Corvette team wanted it back.

With a time of 1:22.8, the C8 ZR1 beat the 992’s time by 2.08 seconds and the C7 ZR1’s time by 3.65 seconds. “It’s pretty incredible to be that much faster than a Corvette that was already so fast,” said Barber, after claiming the production car lap record on his first flying lap.

Road Atlanta Lap

Any lap record is an impressive feat, but what stands out about this quintet of hot laps is that they have been set by a car that wasn’t explicitly designed to top the timing sheets at race tracks. Chris Barber explained: “We want the car to be approachable and drivable for a range of customers. We want a car that’s very robust and easy to drive for any driving style. That’s part of why we wanted to do these four different tracks with four different drivers. We all have different driving styles, and we want to prove the point that it doesn’t require a hired professional race car driver to achieve these results.”

Indeed, GM has made a habit of putting the Corvette ZR1 to the test with its employees at the wheel – its top speed of 233mph was recorded by GM President Mark Reuss. However, we can’t help but wonder how much performance there is to be unlocked by the six GM employees who drive the Corvette Z06 GT3.R racer in the IMSA Sportscar Championship.

Although it’s unclear if the ZR1 will be offered in the UK, the Stingray, the 670bhp Z06, and the E-Ray hybrid variants are all available in right hand drive. We hope the UK Corvette expands to include the 1,064bhp ZR1; given how it’s designed to produce high performance with anyone at the wheel, should GM wish to mount an assault on the records of UK circuits, they can consider us at their disposal.