Chevy Corvette Z06 Chases Down Lamborghini Huracan at Virginia International Raceway | Lightning Lap

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Car and Driver. I'm Carlos Lago. I'm Casey Caldwell. David Beard. And we are sitting kind of awkwardly right now because a really cool thing happened at Lightning Lap this year, where Dave was out doing his hot lap in the Lamborghini Huracan Tecnica, while Casey was out doing his hot lap with the Chevrolet Corvette Z06. And they actually did their laps at the same time. And we got some really cool footage. So we thought it'd be cool to walk you guys through it from their perspectives and tell you what they were seeing, what they were feeling, what it was like, how much fun it was. Because, hey, that's why we do this stuff, right? Right. All unintentional, too. All unintentional. Yeah, this is totally a coincidence, which is really cool. But it may not be next year. Let's get started. So Dave, you're on the left side of the screen in the Huracan. Casey, you're on the right. And we're on the back straight of VIR. Casey, you're ready to start your hot lap. Dave, you're ready to start your hot lap. What's going on now? Yeah, I had already done a bunch of flyers before this. And I knew that I could probably shave a little bit more off. And the tires are finally up, hot and warm, warm. And yeah, here looking around. Don't really see anybody. Crank the belt tight. Casey, you're seeing Dave. Yeah, right now I'm basically like, Dave better be shortcutting this because he's going into the pits, not because he's going to start a flyer. Because I came out of the pits in the Corvette. I mean, they have tire warmers in the car. So the tires are ready to go. And if I slow down too much, the tires won't work in turn one. And I didn't really want to have to take another, basically, what amounted to a sighting lap, just because we didn't have a ton of time. And at this point, I'm going, I probably looked right, looking to see if he was in the pits. But then I couldn't see him, and I was just like, oh, man. And there you see him in turn one. See him in turn one, and I go, well. Here we go. Let's see how this goes. Dave, you had no idea. I had no idea that he was behind me. Rear visibility out of a Huracan is not great. And then when you add in the titanium cage and belt bar back there, it even cuts further into it. So I'm just eyes forward, just going full send. Yeah, I mean, I know that the Huracan will just walk the Corvette on the straight. So I mean, you can see how much he gains just here. But I also know it was probably about five, six seconds a lap faster, maybe. Is that about what it would be, something like that? So in my head right now, I'm basically counting. I'm going, OK, he went to that corner. One, two, three, four, five. OK, we're good. We're good. I really did that. But yeah, it was fun chasing you down. I wish I would have known that you were behind me because maybe I would have tried to push it a little harder. It's here where the gap really starts. You notice the gap really starts to shrink, probably because at the end of the lap. But also the difference in speed. The Huracan topped out on the front straight at 165. And I forget what the Z06's top speed was. But the Huracan just has so much motor and so little aerodynamics to slow it. And the Z06 in the corners is just gaining. It's really cool to see that in action. Yeah, all the high grip sections, the Corvette really makes up a lot of time. Yeah, it's basically once you make the turn in there at bitch and into this infield of, I mean, like the VIR calls this like the Patriot course, but. The Lamborghini's on pizza cutter tires relative to the steam rollers that are on the Corvette. I don't think anybody's ever referred to a modern Lamborghini tire as a pizza cutter. Compared to a Corvette. But there are 305s in the rear and the Corvette's a 345. Everything's now relative to the Z06. At this point, Casey, are you worried about actually catching up to him or now? Yeah, at this point, I'm going if he, you know, it's like it's so long as he gets through moderately clean, I'll be OK. But yeah, it was I mean, you know, he basically reeled him in. Yeah. So the difference in speed at the finish line, 156 versus 153, 154ish. That's cool. And you're jubilant at the end here. Yeah, I was. It was that was a lot of fun. You know, I mean, like we don't. It was right there where I noticed, oh, there's somebody behind me. I'm looking in the mirror again, trying to determine if you're going fast or not. Like, oh, I got to get through here. Yeah, you know, we don't we don't, you know, there's only ever like four or five, maybe six cars on track doing a hot lap at any time. You get four miles. So it's pretty easy to it's pretty easy to to spread out and, you know, have enough room. And yeah, I mean, that was that was just a hoot. I mean, it's also I mean, you get on track and you get behind somebody if they're going slow and they don't see you, you know, they ruin a lap. Yeah, I mean, these are long laps where everything has to be right in order to get it. So when you're in a car that has heat sensitive tires, brakes, coolant and all that stuff, it's a lot of work just to get you to that point. At this point, I was hoping we were going to another one. Another lap. Yeah, I saw my time. I gave you got the draft on the first go around. I was hoping maybe I could get a little bit of it the second time around. I think maybe what we should do for next year is, you know, put you guys out in sort of leapfrog formation so you guys can always be chasing each other and trying to get the best lap. Yeah, cars that are stacked on top of each other. That'd be real cool. No, I think we just need to do an all Miata staff race. Sure. An all spec Miata. Yeah. We need to rent 16 cars and have ourselves a race. And it's a sprint, just one lap. OK. Yeah. Why not, right? I'm into it. Thank you guys for watching. Hope you enjoyed this video. And be sure to check the links below for more from Lightning Lap this year.