But when the lineup includes four of the most powerful supercars sold in America, lap times add spice to the competition. This Lambo allows drivers of all abilities to revel in that experience while confidently exploring and expanding the limitsits, and theirs. Track record. The ZR1 is the fastest production Corvette to lap Laguna Seca. I think we get throttle, brake steering angle RPM; the teams get more. Keep watching. His subsequent record-breaking 1:29.78 lap is almost a second quicker than his best time in the 904-hp McLaren P1, set during the 2015 Head 2 Head test against the Porsche 918. Distance. Thanks to the super-sticky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires that come with the Performance Pack 2, the Mustang GT has a ton of mechanical grip. Strangely, at Laguna Seca, a smaller track where its 460 horses shouldnt hold it back as much, the C7 Grand Sport falls into the lower half of this weeks top-10. For that, you'll have to go #15 on this year's list. But keep in mind the context of this context. Flashy, loud Lamborghinis have tended to overpromise and underdeliver; the Aventador's last place in 2012 is a case in point. A thigh-high wedge of weapons-grade machismo, the Huracan Performante turns heads wherever it's parked. Please check your inbox to confirm your subscription. The first few turns on Route 198 reveal substance behind the showmanshipsuperb steering precision, immense braking capability, prodigious cornering grip, lovely chassis balance, and terrific traction. But he just can't get the big 'Vette to hook up coming out of slow turns. 26 Feb Feb Its 1:44.22 lap time is a record, the quickest lap of Laguna Seca by a front-drive car, beating the previous champ, the 2008 Chevy Cobalt SS, by a whopping 3.5 seconds. "But boy is it fast!". Ooops, not roomy, not a family sedan and way too slow! Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca doubles as our satellite office. 1:37.66 The Mustang GT350R did about 1:36.06 ("1.6 seconds faster") The Camaro SS 1 LE ($44,000) basically tied the M4 GTS. BMWs have underwhelmed us recently, so not many editors expected the new-generation BMW M5 to feel so effortlessly fast and supremely composed. Browse through 2017 IMSA Laguna Seca results, statistics, rankings and championship standings. And that's what makes the flamboyant, operatic, joyously Italian Lamborghini Huracan Performante our 2018 Best Driver's Car. Take another look at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Lap times printed on page 74 of the November 2015 issue of Motor Trend, and you'll find that none of the top 14 fastest cars have ever been the overall winner. We still pinch ourselves that the fine folks at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca allow us full run of one of the planet's greatest racetracks, nestled in one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in the world. October. Now we understood how easily that could happen. Although the big dogs would be the focus of attention, the Kia Stinger also gets its chance on the track today, and the lovely balance of its chassis would deeply impress Randy en route to a 1:46.16 lap time. All of this extra firepower only bought it .62 of a second at Laguna Seca. And that exhaust note! Our Laguna Lap special section is a place where you can find all of the lap. The massive brakes haul the ZR1 down from dizzying velocities with insouciant ease, and the hyper-aggressive turn-in response is backed up by impressive front-end grip. But there was nearly unanimous consensus as to which car should top the list: The Lamborghini would head to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca as the leading contender for the 2018 Best Driver's Car crown. The huge gain with such a minimal bump in power (and a nearly identical power-to-weight ratio) leads us to believe that GMs decision to move the powerplant rearward is off to a flying start! Reference: Motortrend - Motor Trend's 2016 Best Driver's Car Week! After sticking the soapbox dismount, we return to the action with the 2016 Z06, Z07, and its 911 GT3 RS-humbling lap-time. It is what it is!. Here's some more results from Motor Trend. So just a little curious because this i did laguna seca over the weekend (my second track day) and wanted to know what times any of u guys ran. Power isn't everything, however, and the final three cars making the cut this year did so on the quality of their chassis rather than the output of their enginesthough with 306hp from just 2.0 liters, the turbocharged four-banger under the hood of the Honda Civic Type R has the fifth-highest specific output of this year's field. I know moto gp and wsb times are crazy but just curious about the other. Through it all, Virginia International Raceways 4.1-mile Grand Course has proved itself the ultimate test of modern machinery, a North American Nrburgring Nordschleife. United States. Dont be down on the C8s performance though, an engine relocation, the addition of a dual-clutch transmission, and a 35-HP bump netted it more than a second and a half at LS compared to its predecessor. The most potent, track-capable vehicle ever produced by General Motors only stopped the clock .59 before the next car down the C7 pecking order, fell a full two-seconds behind the 16-17 Viper ACR-E, and only registering the fourth-fastest time of the day during the 2018 edition of BDC. That is nicht gut. Video is up on Motor Trend on Demand. He's also remarkably consistent. Kia's Stinger GT and Alfa Romeo's Stelvio Quadrifoglio also win hearts, because both outperform our expectations. Agreed. The lateral acceleration (cornering g's) in Turn 9 might seem strangely high (2.03 g by the Porsche 911) until you realize that the corner is noticeably banked, amplifying tire grip. As an added bonus, the ultimate C6s record run into the sunset led SRT to counter by creating one of your narrators all-time favorite cars, the 1:33.62-running Viper TA. This year was different, as three OEMs successfully pleaded their cases. The crazy part? Reply 624 Dirtdickler 12y ago We still dont feel like the ZR1s performance at Motor Trends headline event was representative of its full potential. Already we see quite a performance bump in just after 1 year. Can we please add below Tesla Plaid laptime? First, there are two kinds of racers: cheaters and losers. Vittel, which we will assume is an alias, says the S Plaid was on a custom set of Michelin Sport Cup 2 tires that will be released along with the vehicle when it goes on sale in late 2021. Those three laps had boosted the rear tire pressures to 36 psi, well above the 32 psi at which the 720S works best. Although it's much happier on the smooth surface of Laguna Seca than on choppy Route 198, chassis balance is also an issue with the Ford Mustang GT, which Randy found oversteered to a fault on corner entry. than the C6 Z06 from year one, landing it in fifth place of all time. Home. A silent crowd clusters around the giant Racepak monitor in the pit garage. I only found out because of someone on Mclaren Life! Taken as a whole, the comprehensive list of Lightning Lap times tells a saga of long-running rivalries, continuous technological progress, and an evolving notion of what constitutes a. It was a productive Friday at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca for the No. We hold our collective breath, transfixed by the real-time trace showing the Porsche's progress around the 2.2-mile track. 'automobile racing' in a sentence. "I think the tires gave us some magic, and then the pressures came up," he says. See the cars in actionright here. With each car depicted in its own imaginary laneas if placed on a humongous slot car trackit's easier to comprehend the otherwise confusing scene of 12 cars simultaneously re-enacting their single best laps. So we air down the McLaren to 29 psi and set the variable drift control a further two clicks away from the "off" setting before Randy heads out again. More2018 Best Driver's CarContenders and Winner. To be quick around VIR, a car has to be nimble enough to negotiate tight hairpins and inspire the confidence to tackle the Climbing Esses at triple-digit speeds. For 2023, we adjusted our LL1 through LL5 price categories up by about 12 percent, to recognize the ever-increasing prices of today's vehicles. The downhill run puts a different set of loads through the chassis and a spotlight on braking, stability, and steering precision. Wait an SUV in BDC? When it comes to high-performance Mustangs, the GT500 stands above all others. When I was a sophomore in high school, our football team didn't lose a game. This surprises Randy, who thought the lap was a sloppy affair; he'd spent the whole time busily working behind the wheel to find the balance between understeer and oversteer. Topic: Motor Trend's Laguna Seca Top Ten . That simple decision minimized the amount of time left on the table for each car and added a layer of science to the proceedings that cant be matched by C&Ds several of us lapped the cars, and we posted the best time approach. If this year's Laguna days had a theme, it was failing to get things right the first time. Laguna Seca is a power circuit, and with more ponies under the hood, the 2019 MX-5 is 2.2 seconds faster than the Miata Randy lapped in BDC 2016. When the final-year Blue Devil stopped the LS clock in 2013, it became the fastest production vehicle ever do so period. Not a chance. 2 formally filed. Race Monitor Available for these platforms: Recent Road Racing Results. I think all are friggen AWESOME!! Blue Ferrari F8 Tributo White Lamborghini Huracan EVO Green Porsche 911 Carrera S Yellow Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Lime Road Atlanta Sep 4, 2020 to Sep 6, 2020 If there's one part of our Best Driver's Car track days that I've seen change over the years, it's the level of manufacturer support. What do these techs do? Jonny had been saying for months that the Lamborghini Huracan Performante was a supercar to rival Ferrari's 488last year's BDC winnerand the McLaren 720S. Given enough market liquidity, there really is no such thing as "overpriced car". Not even 0.2 second. The engine is staggeringly good, a 600-hp iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove. These cars have a stigma attached to them regards racetracks and laptimes! "So the 919, maybe less than 1 minute 15 seconds," said Walliser. We may earn a commission for purchases made through our links. Everyone loves the Herculean supercharged V-8 under the hood, its ferocious power accompanied by a volcanic wall of sound. Although tracks like Road America reward top-end speed, Laguna Seca has only one long straight, so it rewards corner exit acceleration. Over a sun-blasted roadside lunch from our favorite Tacos La Potranca De Jalisco and dinner at The Cork & Plough in King City, we exchange praise and snark as we rank the contenders after our Route 198 test session. Race 1: Streets of St. Petersburg. And with that, BDC 2018 is one for the record books: The three quickest laps in the history of the competition have been set in a single morning. Get our daily recap of Corvette news delivered directly to your inbox. Then it'sBluetoothed to (and stored in)awindshield-mounted iPhone so Randy can see, real-time, his speed and how much he's ahead or behind his best previous lap on its display. However, a better representation of cornering grip happens in Turn 11, which is very flat, while their highest braking g's happen while approaching it (the Senna's peak of 1.55 g's is amazing). The folks from Porsche North America HQ are here, as are Chevy handlers from Detroit, the McLaren and Aston Martin support teams from the U.K., the Lamborghini guys from Italy, a pair of helpful Honda people, and a posse of Motor Trend editors. However, everyone gathered around the Racepak monitor knows the Huracn Performante still has a real shot at the 2018 BDC title. Good example of "diminishing returns" law, which we see almost in any kind of product or service - the most specialist, most well made or very best performing product will sometimes cost multiples more than nearest rival, even if value difference is negligable. We rarely allow it. He loves the little turbo motor's desire to rev and the consistency of the chassis, though for track work he wants a little lift-off oversteer to get the car into corners quicker. If Randy's times fade on subsequent laps, it's because of tire degradation, brake fade, or a spike in intake temperatures causing the engine to pull power. Motor Trend Magazine has returned to Laguna Seca today for the Best Drivers Car test. Even though both his race cars were not pushing all out (particularly the 919, as it still has the rest of the World Endurance Championship to pursue), Walliser calmly responded that the 919 could knock off 15 seconds from the lap times of the 911 RSR racer. Randy reckons his third car of the day, the Honda Civic Type R, to be one of the finest factory front-drive cars he's ever driven. McLaren had to go faster. That doesnt sit well with us! an SUV doing here? This manifests as an equipment arms race. One final retest candidate, the GT 63 S, struggled with tire pressures, and Randy just couldn't connect with the four-door coupeat first. "It would oversteer a little bit, but then it just stayed there, a confident power oversteer that I enjoyed. Retro Car Blue. OO @fastestlaps, https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/czinger-21c-hypercar-smashes-lap-record-laguna-seca, Quote>"The 1233bhp hyper-hybrid was sent around the 2.24-mile course, with professional racer Joel Millar at the wheel, in just 1min 25.44secs, far outpacing the previous record of 1min 27.62secs set by the McLaren Senna in 2019. Each time on this list tells a story about the capabilities of a single car. When we started .css-xtkis1{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#1C5f8B;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;font-weight:bold;}.css-xtkis1:hover{color:#000000;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Lightning Lap 17 years ago, a 2006 Ford GT claimed the fast time with a 3:00.7. One last time, out Randy went. To put that into perspective, the Corvette Z06 gained a massive 145 HP between the C6 and C7 generations. But here at Laguna Seca he's irked by a twitch on corner entry and a lack of traction on corner exit. "Hated this car on the way down the hill!" felt much healthier when it was time for a lap. After that, it all falls apart, the rear axle failing to provide support on corner entry or traction on corner exit. A total of 43,085 Z51 coupes rolled off the assembly line at Bowling Green during the C7s lifespan (just 3,705 in 2017, 716 in 18, and 1,728 in 19, respectively, if you are looking for a rare Vette at a reasonable price! What about absolute limits? So when the V8 specialists at Affalterbach, Germany decided to . The SS 1LEs showing at BDC 2016 was one of the major reasons that I became an owner of the model, in spite of my strong preference for Chevrolets with a Z in their name. https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/watch-teslas-1100-hp-model-s-plaid-trounce-the-corvette-c7-zr1s-laguna-seca-lap-time/, Quote>"Tesla posted an onboard video of the Model S Plaids Laguna Seca lap, and well spoil it right nowthis EV is wickedly fast. Media Coverage; Podcast; Films. Chris swoons as he exits the Alfa, impressed by its exhilarating twin-turbo V-6, sure-footed chassis, and sharp steering. 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