The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE Set A New Nurburgring Lap Record - To give that time some context, the ZL1 1LE beat the previous record set by the standard ZL1 by 13.56 seconds. To achieve the impressive lap time, the ZL1 1LE test car’s suspension was adjusted for optimal track performance. Driving the ZL1 1LE was Bill Wise, a Camaro ride and handling engineer.
“The harder you push the Camaro ZL1 1LE, the more it rewards you on the track,” said Wise. Like the standard ZL1, the ZL1 1LE is powered by a 650-hp LT4 supercharged V8 engine.
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Chevrolet's ZL1 1LE has slashed 13 seconds off the best time for a Camaro around Germany's famed Nurburging circuit.
The ZL1 1LE's time would put it 14th on the overall fastest production car lap list. The Nürburgring lap time was achieved with the ZL1 1LE test car's suspension adjusted for optimal track performance and running production Goodyear tyres.
Let’s start with the core, unspoken assumptions of publishing Ring times:
Times set on the Nurburgring translate, in some degree, to a vehicle’s likely prowess on fast roads as well as on other racetracks.
The Ring is hugely challenging, it is highly memory-intensive, and it is remarkably dangerous. As a race track, the Ring is mostly a follow-the-leader affair. Very few experienced racers regard the Ring as anything other than an exercise in memory. (The two Carousels at the Ring, of course, are banked, concrete lined, zero-apex affairs.) I’ve driven nearly 80 road courses across the planet and the Ring is like none of them. It is rare for a Ring test result to not correspond approximately to the quarter-mile trap speed and lateral-g measurement of the car in question. Most wings are absolutely useless at the 80-mph maximum street-car corner speeds of most racetracks.
So if Ring times don’t mean much for the overall excellence of a production car, what’s the point in setting a time? Which leads to my next complaint about the times: virtually all of them are set by ringer cars. Even if you assume the manufacturer operates with absolute ethical perfection in the matter of tuning the car, what’s to stop them from dyno-testing the next five thousand cars to come off the line and picking the strongest one? Every time Chevrolet sets a record in the Camaro or Corvette, the press obligingly prints lists of cars that are “slower” than the Camaro or Corvette. I’m certain that the ZL1 1LE is a very fast car. Well, first I see the Ring (time), then I sigh…
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