Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

The latest-generation Chevrolet Corvette is a wonderfully good sports car, thanks in large part to the long-running Corvette Racing program. The team—a partnership between Chevrolet and engineering firm Pratt and Miller—debuted at the 1999 Rolex 24 at Daytona, campaigning a pair of C5-R race cars. The wins started the following year and haven't stopped; 102 to date, including eight class wins at Le Mans.

But the Internet lately has been abuzz with increasingly fever-pitched rumors and spy shots of a mid-engined Corvette. While we think it's increasingly likely that an 8th generation 'Vette will indeed have its engine behind the driver, the old-fashioned front-(mid)engined, rear-wheel-drive layout of the C7.R hasn't done too badly the last few years. Competition has gotten particularly fierce in the Corvette's class; 2016 saw the arrival of the Ferrari's 488 GTE and the Ford GT, an all-carbon fiber affair purpose-designed for winning on track.

Bet on the 'Vette

The threat from those mid-engined cars was no doubt a big factor in Porsche moving the 2017 911 RSR's engine ahead of the rear axle, yet the "old" C7.R still has some life in it yet. After all, it was good enough to clinch the 2016 IMSA GTLM championship, and the #3 Corvette had a rather good showing at last month's Rolex 24, finishing just off the podium in a close-fought 4th place.

What is it that has made the Corvette such a good racing platform? According to Corvette Racing Senior Engineering Manager Chuck Houghton, the answer comes down to a lot of hard work and time spent perfecting the platform over the years.

"Every car has their own little advantage. Mid-engined cars have better weight distribution. Rear-engined cars like the Porsche accelerate quite well, especially out of slow turns, but for us the front-engined layout that we have and the engine architecture that we do have—it's probably one of the lightest engines (next to a V6) in the class. Maybe we are limited a bit by the architecture, but we have an engine that's light and tiny, so it makes our job a little easier," he told Ars.

That engine is a 5.5L naturally aspirated, direct-injection pushrod V8, a continuing development of the engine from the previous generation race car. With rules capping engine performance at around 500hp, there was little sense in developing a racing version of the current LT4 engine, since it would have to be de-stroked and de-bored down in capacity and couldn't benefit from tricks like variable valve timing. We also asked whether a mid-engined C8.R was on the cards: "Seems like there's always rumors about this," he said laughing.

What a drag

According to Houghton, much of the work in recent years has been on the aerodynamics side of things: optimizing the car both for better downforce and reduced drag. "It depends on which track you're looking at," he explained. "For the US tracks, we look at getting as much downforce as we can with the least amount of drag. But secondary to that there's characteristics of the car, whether it's in a braking attitude or roll, that we work really hard on to make sure the car is as linear-feeling as possible to the drivers."

That work was done mainly at Pratt and Miller's base in Michigan, as well as at its Corvid offshoot in North Carolina (which specializes in computational fluid dynamics). "They've really focused on getting a car that works everywhere rather than just at one place. That being said, sure when you look at our Le Mans kit compared to what we have in the States, it's much more focused on reducing drag," Houghton said.

Houghton was confident that the eighth-generation Corvette will likely benefit from that research, too. "I think a lot of it will find its way to the road car, even without the big wing and diffuser. We were talking earlier about the characteristics of the car and the attitudes it takes? That will carry over to the road car—the knowledge of what the car needs in certain attitudes."

Listing image by Elle Cayabyab Gitlin