Randy Pobst sets a new production-car lap record at Sonoma Raceway — and Jason Cammisa explains how it all happened. This is a battle between the 2026 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 (ZTK), the Ford Mustang GTD, and the previous Lap Battle champion, the 992.1-chassis Porsche 911 GT3 RS.
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Ultimate Lap Battle doesn't just show you who's fastest, it explains how. We strap SCCA Hall-of-Fame race-car driver Randy Pobst behind the wheel of three of the fastest track cars you can buy today, and using instrumented testing and a little magic, automotive journalist Jason Cammisa narrates the virtual race, partially in slow-motion, explaining what happened and why!
The 2026 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 is a 1064-hp monster, here to avenge the loss of its little Z06 brother back in 2023: with new 10-piston Alcon calipers on even larger carbon-ceramic brakes, to address our biggest complaint about the 2025 Corvette: its stopping power.
The Mustang GTD is the roadgoing version of Multimatic's Mustang GT3 race car, created to end Porsche's motorsport dominance: will this nearly-$400,000 Ford dethrone the now several-year-old 911 GT3 RS?
Famously, the ZR1, GTD, and GT3 RS are effectively tied at Germany's Nürburgring Nordschleife, with just 2.744 seconds separating their nearly 7-minute lap times — recorded on different days with different drivers. Ultimate Lap Battle aims to scientifically break that tie, using the same driver in the same conditions — but also at a track that's representative of other tracks. The Nürburgring isn't: its incredible high-speeds favor horsepower, top speed, and aerodynamic downforce — when a track like Sonoma separates the Great from the merely Good, thanks to a wild assortment of segments that include everything from fast to slow turns, camber, major elevation change, and precarious walls that measure more than just the car's capabilities: it tests driver confidence, too.
The 815-hp Mustang GTD and 518-hp 911 GT3 RS make vastly less power than the Corvette's twin-turbo, flat-plane-crank V-8, but they have DRS (Drag Reduction Systems) — active aerodynamic wings and flaps that allow them to create enormous downforce in the corners, but reduce drag in the straights. Is that enough to make up for the Corvette's power advantage?
Three rear-wheel drive cars: One front-engine, mid-engine, and one rear-engine, with weights spreading 1150 lb, these are three very different formulas to achieve the same goal: a record-shattering lap time.
And one of the cars broke the Sonoma Raceway production-car lap record: At 1:34.941 seconds, it lapped 0.109 seconds faster than the 1:35.05 managed by the Czinger 21C a 3D-printed hypercar costing $2 million.
Which one was it? Watch this intoxicating and entertaining episode to find out. Just please don't wear a tie. There is no place in today's world for formality. (Grin.)
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