Corvette Grand Sport Holds Its Own at Car and Driver’s Lightning Lap Competition
A full decade into Car and Driver‘s Lightning Lap, and one thing remains the same: Corvette provides prodigious speeds for comparatively little outlay. This time, C&D invited the new Grand Sport out to tussle with the world’s best sport and super cars, and tussle it did. With an as-tested price of $92,060, the Grand Sport falls into their LL3 category, which it soundly ran away with. In fact it beat several more expensive LL4 and LL5 cars around the lap with a 2:47.1 time, and only lost out to the vastly more expensive Porsche GT3 RS (2:47.0), Ferrari 488 GTB (2:45.1), and Dodge Viper ACR (2:44.2). Only one tenth of a second off the GT3 RS’ time and a cost savings of almost 100 grand? Not bad. It even beat a McLaren 570S costing over $200K. I’d say the beloved ‘Vette has the advantage there.
The testing team at C&D noted that the Grand Sport feels quite similar to the Z06 that they tested in last year’s Lightning Lap. And their lap telemetry even looks similar through the corners, with the GS only losing time slightly on the long straights to its big brother. The Grand Sport owes much of its success, so say they, to its Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires, which provided up to 1.19 lateral G in turn 1. Having driven on them a number of times, I can say that I do really love these tires and what they’ve done for the Corvette’s elevated-performance Z06 and Grand Sport models.
Does the new Grand Sport live up to the vaulted nameplate? Taking on some of the best cars in the world and coming out right in the thick of things, you bet it does!
Read the full Lightning Lap competition at Car and Driver, then let us know what you think.
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Via [Car and Driver]
