Corvettes have always played with a bit of a chip on their shoulder. An invisible asterisk follows the fiberglass Chevy as it takes aim at the most legendary sports cars on the planet, implying that it’s a great car for an American car.
Not So New for ’25
Chevy, at least, seems to think it got the formula right from the get-go. For 2025, the only real new features on the options sheet are appearance items like paint colors and trim kits. Truly, the spec sheet as a whole remains nearly unchanged since launch day.
The Z51 package as equipped on our test car means a 495-horsepower pushrod V8–up 5 horsepower from the non-Z51 Corvette thanks to the performance exhaust, which is also a standalone option–plus huge brakes and a sportier suspension tuning.
Our tester also added magnetic dampers, a front lift system–super handy for pulling the car onto a trailer–and a few appearance options, as well as the Competition seats, which may have been the biggest surprise.
While they look deeply bolstered–because they are–the Competition seats might be the most comfortable and livable seating option within the C8 lineup. They’re excellent for track work–not as good as a true race bucket but worlds better than most factory offerings–and are somehow also comfy and nonrestrictive during ingress, egress and road tripping. That’s something you can’t say for many factory sport seats, let alone deep, track-focused buckets like these.
An eight-speed, dual-clutch transmission remains the only choice, and it still works very well in automatic mode on the street or in manual mode on track–or, if we’re being honest, in automatic mode on track as well. The manual mode is still probably the most reliable way to quickly get around a track, but the automatic mode is surprisingly good at being in the right gear at the right time and not upsetting the car at key moments when balance is paramount.
Brakes are 13.6 inches up front and 13.8 inches in the rear, pinched by six- and four-piston calipers, respectively. The brakes remain one of our favorite aspects of the car, with great power and awesome feedback and release characteristics on track. And they need to be, for reasons we’ll explain shortly.
The Z51 is pretty much identical to the model that launched way back in 2022, when a young Tom Cruise wowed us on screen in “Top Gun: Maverick” and an old David Lee Roth claimed to retire from music. Why, then, was it so much slower on track than the last one we tested? Maybe the VBox data has some insights.
On Track
The C8 Corvette’s biggest surprise might not be the speed but rather the comfort. For something so fast, it remains eerily civil in daily use.
Yeah, that’s right: The 2025 Corvette Z51 lapped the Florida International Rally & Motorsport Park nearly a second and a half slower than the 2022 Corvette Z51 we tested a few years ago. So, what gives?
First, let’s talk about the subjective impressions before we get to the data. The overwhelming takeaway is that the C8 has a profound lack of front grip. We’ll note that our test car was aligned to the street specs and not the factory-authorized track specs, and as such it had a distinct lack of front camber. A set of relatively narrow 245mm Michelin Pilot Sport 4S front tires along with 305mm rears further adds to the natural traction imbalance.
And yeah, it kind of makes sense. Building a natural fuse into the handling circuit–especially on a car with naturally high capabilities–is probably a high priority for GM’s liability lawyers, and that department certainly gets a say in everything that leaves the factory. But the compromise is evident on track as soon as the pace quickens.
Those exceptional brakes that we shouted out earlier can jump straight into ABS intervention in the front if you don’t give the weight transfer a moment to plant those front tires. And the front is ultimately the end that defines max cornering speeds. Yes, you can drive the thing in a way that gets the front to the limit while the rear is doing its fair share as well, but that demands forcing the issue on weight transfer, and it’s not the fastest way through a corner in this conservative OEM configuration.
Was the 2022 example also front grip challenged? Well, yeah. But according to the data, it wasn’t quite as dramatic in most corners as we saw with the ’25. This was particularly evident in the FIRM’s Turn 3, where you’re braking slightly uphill into a right-hander that levels off. This can really accentuate understeer on entry, and the lack of front grip on the newer car actually caused us to miss the entry and abandon the lap on a couple of occasions. We found ourselves entering this corner some 6 mph slower than in the 2022 Corvette Z51.
1. Corner-entry understeer was a common theme with the 2025 Corvette Z51 (red trace), allowing the 2022 version of the same car (blue trace) to deliver faster laps. 2. But under acceleration and once past the apex, the two cars performed identically. 3. This is a great example of how a bad exit can hurt you down the subsequent straight. An oil spill in this area a few days earlier limited our exit speed from Turn 8, and that lack of traction slowed the entire run to the next corner. Looking at most of the data, we’re basically willing to call this one a tie, with the greatest time differences being a result of track conditions.
Another issue that possibly slowed us down was the slippery conditions on track. On the Monday before our Friday test day, another car had lost an oil line and hosed down the track from the exit of Turn 8 to the entry of Turn 9.
The FIRM crew had done a good job cleaning it up, but we were still seeing a notable lack of speed in the very final phase of Turn 8. We also saw a lack of speed on the entry to Turn9, which had us fighting the natural understeer all the way through that final corner and across the timing loop.
What about the rest of the lap? Pretty much no difference in the data between this Corvette and the earlier ZR1, even after three years and countless cycles of weather, rubber and wear. Even in the corners where the newer car didn’t get the greatest exit due to track conditions or maybe slight alignment differences, the acceleration curves down the ensuing straight look identical.
All of the key indicators show that this car is every bit as good as the 2022 model. If anything, this emphasizes how much track conditions and slight variances in alignment, tire condition and countless other tiny variables can compound and affect lap times.
So, the 2025 Corvette Z51 will go down as running a 1:17.50, but it’s not really its fault that it couldn’t match the 1:16.16 set by the 2022 model. Most of the data, the specs and our butts tell us it’s the exact same car we tested three years ago.
World-Class?
What could make the Corvette Z51 even faster? We’d opt for more front grip, meaning wider tires and increased negative camber. It’s oh-so-close.
The sticker price on our test car was a little over $98,000. Objectively, that’s a lot of money, but the real question is what could you possibly buy that could match the performance and inherent competence of the C8 Z51 for anywhere near that price?
And that competence must be part of the discussion as well. The C8 is so remarkably livable, so undemanding as an everyday car that it’s practically uncanny. Sightlines–especially to the front over that low frunk–are exceptional. Driving position is better than any Corvette we’ve ever experienced, and the deep rear trunk actually provides a shocking amount of utility.
What else are you going to find that compares with the C8 Z51? The least expensive 911 starts at $127,700. The least expensive Ferrari starts at nearly three times that Porsche.
Maybe it’s time we stop mentioning the Corvette in terms of those cars and start mentioning them in terms of the Corvette. It does as much or more, for less money and with greater accessibility, than maybe any sports car that’s ever existed.
Throw on a little wider front tire, dial in some negative camber, and turn the track into your personal plaything for less money and effort than any wannabe world-class sports car.
