Corvette Z06 Coupe

Make
Chevrolet
Segment
Coupe

The new Chevrolet Corvette Z06 is set to officially debut on October 26. Before that, the automaker seems to want something big to happen. Big, as in a Nurburgring lap time. But Chevy just suffered from a double dose of bad luck. Road and Track has confirmed GM had three C8 Z06 test mules out running laps during an industry session at the famed track earlier this week. The ultimate goal was obvious.

Unfortunately, things quickly went wrong after a BMW M8 test car suffered a serious crash, rolling over on the Kesselchen section, a part of the track known for high speeds.

At around the same time, a completely unrelated crash involving a Tesla Model S Plaid smashing into a barrier took place in the Klostertal sector. The drivers of both cars are just fine. However, these incidents caused a significant traffic jam.

So why can't GM simply try again on another day? Well, the Nurburgring is only open to manufacturers who want to conduct testing times for two weeks this month. Bad weather with rain is reportedly on the way, making track conditions far from ideal. Plus, those crashes caused damage on the track itself.

Barriers needed to be replaced along with a major clean-up. More valuable time was lost. It's impossible to know what GM's next move will be because these test sessions are top secret, meaning there won't be an official statement. But not all is lost in the long term.

GM wouldn't have been able to set a so-called "full" lap record over the last few days because it didn't shell out the money to rent the entire track for its exclusive use. Nor did it have a notary on hand. The most likely goal was to get an accurate enough lap time to give the public when the car premieres next month.