[VIDEO] Car and Driver Lightning Lap 2025: No ZR1 This Year, so Watch the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing Blitz VIR

Feb 22, 2025

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[VIDEO] Car and Driver Lightning Lap 2025: No ZR1 This Year, so Watch the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing Blitz VIR

Screenshot Credit: Car and Driver

Every year (except that weird one when March Madness was also canceled) since 2006, Car and Driver has been making an annual pilgrimage to Virginia International Raceway’s 4.1-mile Grand Course with the best new performance vehicles in tow to test their overall dynamics against the challenging track (dubbed the American Nürburgring), the clock, and each other.

The inaugural event just so happened to coincide with an explosion of factory track-focused, high-horsepower Corvettes, making it one of the highlights of every calendar year for us here at CorvetteBlogger. So, imagine our disappointment when we learned that even though the 1,064-horsepower culmination of those ever-escalating ‘Vettes recently visited VIR and left with production car records on the Grand and Full courses, C&D wasn’t able to secure a C8 ZR1 in time for Lightning Lap 2025. We will be forced to wait until next year to see how the LT7 monster avails itself in the ink-stained hands of Ann Arbor’s editors.

Just because the Crossed Flags are sitting this one out after the 2024 E-Ray notched a 2:45.9 (good for 36th place out of a staggering 340 historical participants) last year on the heels of the Z06’s sub-$140,000 record and 6th overall 2:38.6 in 2023, doesn’t mean that we’re left without a rooting interest. There was still a car out there roaring with the eight-cylinder heart of a Corvette in LL 18: the facelifted 2025 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing.

The C(orvette)T5-V Blackwing

The grander of Cadillac’s renowned Alpha II platform mates keeps the memory of front engine ‘Vettes alive with its C7 Z06-sourced 6.2L Supercharged LT4 V8. Unless you count the truck-tuned LT4/LT5 hybrid behind the sizable grille of the Cadillac Escalade-V – which we don’t – the CT5 features the most potent version of the tried-and-true LT4 at 668 horsepower and 659 lb-ft of torque; numbers that remain unchanged through the model’s 2025 refresh.

Other than a nipped and tucked front clip and a larger (33-inch) screen that integrates the central infotainment screen and the digital gauge cluster along with taking the GM Performance Data Recorder tech to the next level, the highlight of the Blackwing and the primary reason it was permitted another go at LL is the new-for-25 Precision Package.

Inspired by former GM performance boss John Heinricy’s stint in a CT4-V Blackwing in SCCA’s T2 class, the PP’s primary aim was to make the hulking CT5 feel as sharp behind the wheel as its M3-fighting sibling. The extensive package’s primary components consist of all-new bushings, a stiffer anti-roll bar out front, stiffer spring rates (70% stiffer in front, 60% in back), revised front suspension knuckles that can accommodate 2.8 degrees of negative camber, custom retuned go-fast goodies like MagRide, PTM, eLSD, steering, and optional Pilot Sport Cup 2R rubber.

Per Matt Farah’s excellent piece for Road&Track this week, it’s important to note that Caddy’s PP isn’t an all-out Camaro 1LE-style track package: “The package name, though ungainly, is intentional. It’s not a “track pack,” or, to borrow from BMW, a “competition package,” or any other racing-¬related term. Yes, the Precision package does make the Blackwing quicker around a track, but it does so without ruining the car’s street manners.”

The Lap and Context

So, what’s the sum of all of these new parts at VIR? About a second and a half compared to the 2022 model. Going from 2:49.4 to 2:47.9 vaulted the 5-VBW over the former four-door record holder in the Mercedes-AMG GT63 S 4Matic, the once unbeatable 2009 Viper SRT10 ACR, and the C8 Corvette Stingray Z51. In the pantheon of LT4-powered sleds, it’s 2.2 ticks ahead of the 2017 Camaro ZL1 and almost 10 seconds out in front of the previous-generation CTS-V and its 640-horse tune, but still nearly three seconds behind the Camaro ZL1 with the 1LE package, and an additional .4 behind the leading Z06 that ripped off a 2:44.6 in 2015.

As far as sedans are concerned, the Blackwing did beat the previously mentioned AMG benchmark but ended up falling to the AWD Porsche Panamera Turbo S (which somehow hauls 4,714 lbs. swiftly around VIR with “just” 620 ponies) by one-tenth of a second. But that infinitesimal gap didn’t really matter because the Blackwing and the “Porker” were only fighting for the “internal combustion four-door” title. The overall sedan record was crushed by the Lucid Air Sapphire, a quarter-million-dollar, 1,003 HP, 5,319 lb. electric sledgehammer that pounded its way to this year’s best ET: a 2:40.2, good for 10th place all-time.

Watch the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing’s lap at CarandDriver.com.

The Sapphire

Now, this is usually where I’d drop the following quote from the article: “The Blackwing is happy to hot-lap for the duration of its 17.4 gallons of fuel, which translates to about eight 4.1-mile laps. And the carbon-ceramic brakes (a $9000 option required to spec the Precision package) never show a hint of fade,” as a means of pointing out that no matter how quick the Lucid and its EV brethren can be for a hero lap, their performance isn’t repeatable as they are quickly sidelined for extended periods while they cool down and re-juice. I might also point out that given the choice between keys to something like a lowly C5 Corvette Z06 or this $253,400 luxury monument to modern American manufacturing at VIR, just about everyone who loves driving would reach for the 1/10 the cost mid-2000s ‘Vette.

BUT I’m not going to do that today because the time is so dang impressive! Not only did Newark, California’s finest manage to fend off Porsche’s mightiest electric sedan, the Taycan “Turbo” GT (that had to settle for fourth place at this year’s event and had to limp back to Germany without a single record – not the fastest sedan, not the quickest EV, nothing), but it also left the new 1,001-horse hybrid Lamborghini Revuelto, a dedicated Italian super/hypercar that retails for $729,458, and a real, hotted-up Porsche track car, the Manthey Racing version of the Cayman GT4 RS in its wake! Stipulations, personal reservations about EVs, and a hard-to-fathom MSRP aside, the kind of Star Spangled whoopin’ the Lucid was able to put on the uppity imports gives us a sense of National Pride usually reserved for B2 flyovers, moon landings, or when our Hockey team starts three fights in the first nine seconds of a game after opposing fans disrespected our anthem (regardless of how the OT final turned out), and that should be celebrated!