Corvette ZR1 blasts the Nurburgring

Three years after its last assault Chevrolet has returned to Germany’s famous Nurburgring with the 476kW supercharged Corvette ZR1 to record one of the fastest lap times ever posted by a production car.

Driven by GM engineer and ace wheel man Jim Mero, the ‘Vette blasted around the 20.8km circuit in 7:19.63. According to Chevrolet the car was a full production model with no performance modifications, although it was shod with optional ‘competition-oriented’ Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tyres.

This time is 4.6sec faster than that recorded by Nissan’s GT-R in 2010 (in the hands of Toshio Suzuki) and just 1.6sec behind the Porsche 911 GT2 RS’s time of 7:18 set by Timo Kluck.