A 1,250-hp Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X just put a 1,500-hp Bugatti Chiron on notice in a quarter-mile showdown at Apex Motor Club near Phoenix, doing it the messy way – on a hot, unprepped back straight where both cars had to fight for grip. DragTimes lined up Mark Victor’s electrified Corvette against Devon’s Chiron, with Brooks Weisblat driving the ZR1X and Parker Nirenstein handling the Bugatti. The result was a 3-0 sweep for the Corvette from a dig, followed by a tighter roll-race battle that showed why the Chiron still wears a very expensive crown. The Corvette Got Out First, Then Kept Digging On paper, the Chiron should scare almost anything with license plates. Its 8.0-liter quad-turbo W16 makes 1,500 horsepower, a number that helped turn the car into the modern poster child for speed and excess. The W16 uses staged turbocharging, with pairs of turbos coming in sequence so the engine can feed all 16 cylinders without acting like an old-school lag machine.The ZR1X brought a different kind of violence. Chevrolet combines the ZR1’s 1,064-hp twin-turbo 5.5-liter LT7 V8 with a 186-hp front electric drive unit, giving the car 1,250 hp and all-wheel drive. The automaker says the car can run 8.675 seconds at 159 mph on a prepared strip, and 8.99 seconds on an unprepped surface with the ZTK package.Race one showed the gap right away. The Chiron spun hard at the hit, while the ZR1X got away clean enough to leave the Bugatti staring at American taillights. For the second run, the Corvette driver gave the Bugatti a small jump to make the race more honest. It still did not save the Chiron. Both cars spun, both gathered themselves, and once the tires settled, the Corvette pulled clear by several car lengths. On the third dig, Weisblat dropped the Corvette’s launch rpm from 3,300 to 3,200 after feeling the car haze the tires, and the ZR1X completed the sweep. Why The ZR1X Looks Like A Hypercar Bully ChevroletThe surprise was not that the Corvette was fast. The surprise was how well it used its power when the surface refused to help. The ZR1X’s front motor gives it instant torque at the axle that usually does the least in a rear-drive supercar launch. That yanks the nose forward before the V8 fully takes over and cleans up the ugly first 60 feet, where even rich people discover tire physics.Chevrolet’s Custom Launch Control also lets drivers tune launch rpm and wheel slip from the auxiliary display. On a prepared strip, big power can look heroic, but on a hot Arizona morning, with the temperature already around 80 degrees at 8 a.m., the smarter launch often beats the bigger number. The Bugatti wore Michelin Cup 2 tires, while the ZR1X ran Michelin Pilot Sport 4S rubber, so neither car had a drag radial cheat code hidden under the fenders.ChevroletThe roll race gave the Chiron its best moment. From 30 mph, the Bugatti jumped ahead when the Corvette started in the wrong mode and missed the ideal shift point. In the rematch, the Corvette driver locked in second gear, went back to automatic shifting after the hit, and the two cars ran close. The Chiron’s gearing and huge top-end power started to show, but the ZR1X hung around instead of fading into the heat shimmer.Source: DragTimes on YouTube
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