Unreal times from the "old school" Corvette. 1.08.3 (GT2RS and Aventador are both slower) for the ZR1 is nuts. and 1.08.7 (faster than McLaren Mp4-12C) for the Z06 is just as crazy. I'm deeply impressed.
Have always known the old Goodyears were fairly crap tires for the kind of power they had to put down. Would be interesting to know what the results are for the various traction control and suspension settings.
From what I know, the standard 2012 ZR1 gets taller 5th and 6th gears to improve fuel economy. It's basically the same as the Z06's gear set in the top 2 gears. If you specify a ZR1 with the high performance package (and MPSC's), you get the "old" standard ZR1 gear set. Std: 1st - 2.26 2nd - 1.58 3rd - 1.18 4th - 1.00 5th - 0.71 6th - 0.50 High Performance: 1st - 2.29 2nd- 1.61 3rd - 1.21 4th - 1.00 5th - 0.81 6th - 0.67 For reference, these are the Z06 gears which shows shorter 1st-3rd gears (likely to reflect its different powerband): 1st - 2.66 2nd - 1.78 3rd - 1.30 4th - 1.00 5th - 0.74 6th - 0.50
someone kows if teh latest Corvettes are use-friendly and comfortable, ore they must stay in garage when wet?
This never seemed to be much issue with cars like the GT3RS/Scuderia/MC12 so shouldn't be an issue now. If an owner uses his head, there's no reason why the Corvettes can't be used in the wet. Like any other car on semi-slicks, you just need to pay attention to standing water and very cold temps. Don't drive like a total idiot and you should be fine. The Corvettes with magnetic shocks seem user-friendly and comfortable enough on most roads. Auto Motor und Sport rated the Z06 close to the MP4-12C, 599 GTB and C63 Black Series on ride/damping so it's not like it's unbearable. On heavily rutted roads, it probably tramlines more than other cars with narrower tires. This is traded off somewhat in the security of being able to drive 50 miles to safety (or home) on completely flat tires, something which the other cars mentioned won't do.
My "suspect" was just they extremized the too the setup, not just about tyres. even so, laptimes are simply incredibly, as fast as the mighty (and really Extreme) Gt2 RS (not exactly the latest "Ikea car of the year)... thanks for the answer
The setup doesn't seem to have been "extremized" over the previous Corvettes. This Z06 has similar ride/damping rating to ones they've tested before. If it's camber you're talking about, then a little more camber isn't going to hurt in the wet; if anything, it might do better to push the water aside in normal driving, as you don't have a flat tire riding on a thin film of water on a flat surface. There's nothing about these laptimes that should be surprising. The ZR1 on PS2's was faster than the GT2 on Cup+ tires in 2 same-day tests in Motor Trend and Excellence. The latter is a Porsche-enthusiast magazine, and both used professional Porsche racers as their control drivers. Now that the ZR1 has Cup tires, it should come as no suprise that it laps comparably or slightly faster than the GT2 RS (not exactly the easiest car for even pro journalists to extract the most from). This test merely supports what we have already seen recently, in the Motorsport France and Motor Trend tests: Z06/ZR1s on Cup tires are easily the match for the 458 on MPSS tires (which was faster than the GT2 RS in same-day testing at Rockingham). The tires seem to be the single biggest improvement. We see now that the Grand Sport on 2nd generation Goodyear F1s (called "G:2") is only 0.2s slower than the Z06 was on the old F1s, and the Z06 is a much faster car (over 2s faster to 200 kph) than the Grand Sport. In American tests, the Grand Sport coupe on the old F1s pulled 1.02g on the skidpad and GS convertibles with the newer F1s have pulled 1.06g. The only thing surprising (and disappointing to me) is that GM offered such subpar rubber on such high powered cars without Cups even as options for so long. Basically, the old F1s were sh*t for lap times and proven to be so when GM's pro driver knocked 4 seconds off a 1:3x lap at Road Atlanta with PS2s.
