Corvette ZR1 Tries To Set a Nurburgring Lap Record, It's Much Safer Than the Real Deal

For most people, virtual racing is the only way they can, at least at present time, experience what it feels like to go for a fast lap around their favorite track. It's a lot easier, cheaper, and safer to learn the Nordschleife layout while playing Assetto Corsa than it is to go there in person.

And seeing that it's Corvette month here on autoevolution, we thought we'd perform a series of tests featuring the great American sports car. Now, we all know that a C7 ZR1 is both rare and expensive at the same time, but with Assetto Corsa it's just a click away from hours and hours of wide-open-throttle excitement.

After a bit of searching through Google results, we came across the mod for this vehicle on someone's YouTube channel of all places. That particular video showed the ZR1 going for a fast lap around Imola, and we thought we'd give it a try as well.

As we can't get enough of the Nürburgring, that was going to be our destination for the day. But first, we wanted to see what some of the fastest Corvettes were by checking out the list of lap records. The C7 Z06 seems to rank highest on that list, with a fast full lap of seven minutes and just under 14 seconds.

The test was carried out by Sport Auto's Christian Gebhardt on the 24th of April 2017. But surely, the ZR1 could do better than that right? With Jim Mero driving the 755-hp Vette, everyone was hoping for a sub-7 lap.

And it managed to get there, but not the traditional way. Mero went three seconds below seven minutes, but that was a segmented time instead of a regular lap. One of those took him seven minutes and four seconds, and so everyone has been a little hush-hush about it all.

After all, the 2017 Viper ACR went down to 7:01 before crashing on the third attempt around the track. So we set out to see how fast the ZR1 would be in Assetto Corsa, and what kind of driving experience it would provide.

We didn't expect to go faster than Jim Mero did, as you can't be that efficient when playing on a keyboard setup. But that wasn't going to stop us from trying. We chose to drive with the Pro settings, albeit with stability control at 50%. Other than that, no ABS, no traction control, and a manual gearbox.

Right off the bat, you have to admire the effort put into developing this car. It's a 2019 ZR1 with a ZTK Track Performance Package, and there are nine different colors to choose from. Once you enter the game you'll notice that the car is on Ontario plates.

Once you go inside, everything seems to be fairly well put together. And we didn't expect to see a functioning heads-up display! This might be the first time that happens for us in Assetto Corsa. The engine sounds are pretty accurate, and once you shift into first you'll be laying down rubber as if there's no tomorrow.

The acceleration is quite decent, but pay extra attention to zones where you have to stomp on the brakes. This seems to be the car's weakest point, and you could end up initiating a drift without planning to do so. You can also feel that this car weighs 3,560 lbs (1,615 kg), but you can adjust your lines and braking points accordingly.

This is a fast car but it's not a race car, and you can feel it moving around a lot. But you get used to it after a while, and the more laps you put in the more exciting it becomes. While the ZR1 should be more than capable of going past 186 mph (300 kph), we could only go as far up as 182 mph (294 kph) while driving downhill.

For our first lap of the track, we just managed to dip below eight minutes, but we improved on the second one. Still, at 7:41.653 we were 37 seconds off Jim Mero's result so we went back for a third attempt. Braking into Aremberg is tricky, to say the least, as you're shifting a lot of weight onto the front tires. So try to be as gentle as possible there, to avoid crashing into the barriers.

After about 30 minutes of playing, we managed to improve our previous lap record by about four seconds. But you'll be on the edge of your seat for the whole time, even though there's still more potential to be exploited here. Also, you'll have to excuse some of the occasional hiccups (going off track a few times).

If you play your cards right, you might be able to get down to 7:20 by playing on a keyboard. But you need to have more precise control over your throttle, steering, and braking inputs to genuinely challenge Jim Mero's time. Seems like we might have to get a proper sim racing setup soon.