Chevy is about to announce the most anticipated Nürburgring lap times of the year. In an Instagram post shared on Wednesday, the brand announced that it plans to reveal multiple Nürburgring Nordchleife lap times for the Corvette lineup on July 31.
While the post does not announce which Corvette variants will showcase their official lap times, a still from the video shows what appears to be a ZR1X in yellow, a "basic" ZR1 in red, and a Z06 in black.
This is no guarantee that all three cars got an official timed lap in, but it is a good sign that the announcement could potentially include benchmarks for three of the five C8 variants.
The ZR1X, a recently-revealed model with over 1200 hp, is the headliner, and may have a shot at the track's overall production car record.
The brand previously posted a teaser for the timed runs on June 28th, which could be read as a hint that the fastest 'Vette lapped the legendary circuit in 6 minutes and 28 seconds.
That would eclipse a record of 6:29 set last year by the limited Mercedes AMG One hypercar. It seems like an optimistic, but not impossible, goal for the hybrid hyper-Corvette.
Chevy has previously announced some notable lap times for the non-hybrid ZR1 Corvette, including track records at Road America and Road Atlanta.
Those fast American tracks are not necessarily representative of performance on the 'Ring, but the basic ZR1 beat the 992.1-generation Porsche 911 GT3 RS by five seconds at Road America and the 991.2-generation GT2 RS by two seconds at Road Atlanta.
Those 2 cars have official lap times of 6:49 and 6:43 at the Nürburgring, respectively, although the latter time is for the GT2 RS with Manthey Performance kit. (Porsche originally announced that the 991.2 GT3 RS did a 6:44, but that was for the shorter 20.6 kilometer track layout; the 6:49 is for the full 20.8-km version.)
Those comparisons should comfortably put both the ZR1 and ZR1X in position to pass the Ford Mustang GTD's 6:52 lap and take the record as the fastest American car in the track's history.
That sort of speed may be out of reach for the less powerful Z06, but it could potentially break the seven-minute mark, too.
For now, all of these comparisons are just data points that can be used for estimates.
The C8's ultimate pace will be revealed when lap times are announced on Thursday.
