ZR1, 911 GT3 Prove Who’s Best at Track Day (Video)
All-arounder ZR1 vs. track-focused GT3 demonstrate their strengths and weaknesses in the Southern California desert.
Which car would you choose to take to, then on, the track? On one hand, there’s the Corvette ZR1. The top-of-the-line ‘Vette comes with a big wing and a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 packing 755 horses and 715 lb-ft of torque. The Porsche 911 GT3, meanwhile, only has 500 horses and 339 lb-ft of torque from its 4.0-liter flat-six, plus optional carbon disc brakes worth $9,000 on the sticker.
Not much of a contest, then, right? Not so fast. Edmunds’ Alistair Weaver and Carlos Lago brought a ZR1 and a GT3 to Southern California’s Streets of Willow Springs to find out which of the two is the best track-day car.
“Now, those three-digit, alphanumeric codes mean a lot,” says Lago. “In the Corvette’s case, ZR1 means it’s the highest performing and most powerful version of the Corvette that you can get, with 755 horsepower and an optional track package that gives it a big rear wing and sticky race track-oriented tires.”
“Which makes it a perfect match for the GT3,” adds Weaver, “named after a sports car racing class. It was developed by Porsche’s crack motorsport division, and is built on the same production line as the 911 race cars, Oh, and it revs to 9,000.”
Sounds settled again, right? Not quite. According to Lago, the ZR1 offers more for $30,000 less than the 911 GT3: “more tire, more power, more torque, even a bigger rear wing. And there’s actually one more gear in its optional automatic transmission.” On the other hand, the GT3 offers a purer, track-focused experience through its 4.0-liter flat-six, which Weaver says “is basically a race-car engine. So, there’s no supercharger, no turbocharger, just a purity of purpose [with] instantaneous throttle response.”
In the preliminary comparison tests, both the ZR1 and GT3 complete the quarter-mile in 11.2 seconds, through the former did so at 127.2 mph compared to the latter’s 124.7 mph. Zero to 60 mph would be a different story, though. The ZR1’s 3,661-pound heft meant hitting the mark in 3.4 seconds, while the GT3’s launch control (and 400-pound difference) helped the Porsche get to 60 mph in 3.1 seconds. The ZR1 would best the GT3 in braking, however, stopping from 60 mph in 95 feet vs. the GT3’s 103 feet.
“[The ZR1] is a car, frankly, that starts as a $50,000-$60,000 GT sorta sports car,” Lago says, “and to see it at this level of performance is astounding. This is almost like an advanced level driving experience, because the steering requires so much effort, because you have so much mass. You can sense it all around you.”
“And in this car,” adds Weaver, “you kinda feel like the electronics are constantly doing battle with the physics, whereas in the 911, you actually feel the electronics… they’re guiding you through the process.”
As for the GT3, Lago and Weaver both admire the responsiveness of the naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-six, a growing rarity in an increasingly turbocharged world.
“I think as we all go towards turbocharged engines,” Weaver says, “that’s something that we’re gonna have to get used to. That wonderful throttle response and that undiluted sound which we have with this 911 is gonna go away. And even Porsche isn’t sure how long they can hang on to this.”
“My first two laps in [the GT3] were faster, it felt like, than the Corvette,” adds Lago. “There were specific parts on this track, the scarier, hairier parts of this track, I was five mile[s] an hour faster immediately. When you know what you’re doing behind the wheel, you’re still gonna feel rewarded in this car. If you’re a novice, you’re still gonna feel good in this car, and that’s quite a feat to accomplish. That’s something the Corvette definitely doesn’t do.”
Both the ZR1 and GT3 are excellent track-day specials for their own reasons. Not only that, but the C7 era of the ZR1 is the last of its kind, as the next one will likely be the mid-engined C8. The GT3, on the other hand, will hold on to its residual value three to five years down the road.
As for which car is the best track-day car, though, Lago and Weaver state it’s no contest: the 911 GT3 takes all.
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