General Motors has confirmed that it has set a lap time at the infamous Nurburgring-Nordschleife with its mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette C8, though it does not know when it will release that number.
This news is unsurprising, seeing as the Corvette C8 was photographed and filmed testing at the 154-turn, 12.9-mile race track multiple times throughout its development. The bumpy Nurburgring not only helps automakers develop the chassis and suspension for vehicles (and not just performance cars), lap times there have become the benchmark for measuring a car’s overall performance.
According to Motor Authority, which first broke the story, British Corvette Racing ace Oliver Gavin was behind the wheel for the Corvette C8’s fastest Nurburgring lap. While Chevy did not hint as to how fast the car lapped the daunting German track, a spokesperson told the publication that the car had exceeded their expectations. For reference, the C7 Corvette Z06 set a fastest lap of 7 minutes and 10 seconds at so-called Green Hell, while the C7 Corvette ZR1 allegedly set a time of 7 minutes and 4 seconds according to GM hotshoe Jim Mero. Chevrolet never officially released the ZR1’s time, however, as they wanted the car to dip into the 6-minute range and various factors prevented it from doing so.
The current Nurburgring lap record for a production car on street legal tires is held by the all-wheel-drive Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, which set a lap of 6:44.97. Don’t expect the Corvette C8 to come close to the Lambo’s time. Not only does it have active aerodynamics and AWD, it also makes 759 horsepower from its 6.5-liter V12 engine. A time beating the C7 Corvette Z06’s does seem like a possibility, but we’ll wait for an official announcement from GM before we get too carried away with speculation.
Motor Authority thinks GM will release the Corvette C8 Nurburgring lap sometime in the next couple of months. When they do, you can be sure that we’ll have all the details and hopefully an onboard video to share as well.
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Source: Motor Authority
Comments
Can’t wait to see the YouTube video of the 2020 Chevrolet C8 Corvette Z51 doing the hot lap at the Nurburgring.. or a split screen with video of the C8 Corvette next to a C7 Corvette Z06 or ZR1 as that would be worth paying to watch to see how the two cars handling differ.
Pretty excited myself, it took them forever to release the C7 lap times. I mean I can understand doe situations didn’t pan out the way we wanted but still. I waited like 5 years for that lol.
Don’t you wonder why they won’t release the times when they know what they are
The ideal lap time for a Z51 500 HP Corvette C8 would be 7:27:59
So little worse than Tesla
Tesla did not record and publish a Ring 12.9 mile flying lap time .. there is only alleged speculation, which makes no sense, since nobody can run a flying lap or run the full 12.9 mile lap on Industry pool days.
the standard camaro 1le is faster than that
GM must be serious to have Oliver Gavin at the wheel.
The reason they put Gavin behind the wheel was to save money. It only costs about $100 to fly from England to Germany but will be over $1,000 to fly a U.S. based driver to Germany. Also, he might be driving in the various upcoming races in Europe in the new Vette and he needs practice time. GM needs to win at Le Mans, and Gavin might be one of the drivers lined up for the Corvette race team for that race.
Saving a $1,000 dollars to choose drivers is a ridiculous argument. I have land in Florida if you want to buy – a great deal under a troll bridge and fairies live nearby.
lol
With flux capacitor option I’m guessing it finishes in -7 billion years.
All well and good……get the strike settled… so we can order and start building
these babies…
I wish the current population would go back to a preference in performance over comfort and utility.
One day we will back at a time when we could have saved fast cars from extinction. Now if you want a fast car the selections are slim and getting less and less every year that goes by.
We can have it all now. Even the Camaro SS has both comfort and performance, though utility is kind of lacking.
The people who ask GM to make the Camaro larger need to focus on buying something different. Leave the Camaro and Corvette alone!
6:47.2 for Porsche GT2RS!
Being as 98% of the corvette buyers are not race car drivers, I’m totally comfortable with the speed and performance figures shown so far. The C8 looks amazing and would be great if they would start building them so we can have delivery sometime soon!
Speed kills. Don’t know why manufacturers need to build cars that exceed the speedlimits. My late husband’s 61 Rambler Classic got good gas mileage…that was enough for us. He would go faster only to pass a slow tractor hauling hay.
He also tried to speed away when I caught him with the widow Irene from down the block doing the nasty in the reclining front seats. They barely escaped my beating them with a tire iron. But that’s a story for another day…….
Get a CUV and leave the men and our cars alone…..
I thought that word was that the lap time was the same as the release date. It was written on the side of the car 07.18.19
The new “Baby Blue” C8 color is about the ugliest color ever in the history of Corvette: except, perhaps, for British Green. Do you have any results from the C8 Build site of what percentage of the “buyers” selected “Baby Blue”?
That’s why they make chocolate and vanilla….
I can’t believe no one took an unofficial (stop watch) laptime of it ?! My guess is 7:18.19
Which was why they choose July 18 2019 to reveal this gorgeous mid engine!