The Indy 500’s Pace Car Has More Power Than the Race Cars

The C8 Corvette ZR1’s unbelievable 1,064 horsepower brings with it a variety of superlatives. Add this surprising one to the record: Extra highly effective than the race automobiles it will tempo to inexperienced at this yr’s Indy 500.

An IndyCar’s 2.2-liter turbocharged V-6 makes about 700 horsepower on its highest increase setting, give or take a couple of horsepower. In line with the Indianapolis Star, the hybrid system that debuted within the collection partway by the 2024 season and making its 500 debut this yr, provides round 60 horsepower. So determine someplace close to or under the 800-hp mark.

Picture by: Penske Leisure

This could be the primary time ever the Indy 500 tempo automobile has extra energy than automobiles it is pacing. And never a bit extra horsepower, over 250 extra horsepower. 

Clearly, the Corvette just isn’t sooner than an Indy 500 machine. The brand new ZR1 can prime out at 233 mph, however in qualifying, the quickest automobiles working the five hundred ought to common that form of pace round 4 laps of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. That is the good thing about a lot decrease weight, slick tires, and downforce. Nonetheless, it is a humorous reflection on the state of contemporary efficiency automobiles, and the monster output of the ZR1 that the one with a VIN has extra energy. 

Chevrolet has supplied Indy 500 tempo automobiles solely since 2002, they usually’ve been Corvettes since 2017. Former soccer professional and Good Morning America host Michael Strahan is the movie star visitor pace-car driver this yr—a robust alternative, on condition that he is an enormous automobile fanatic with a pleasant assortment. The tempo automobile wears an aesthetic livery of inexperienced and gold over white, and naturally, it will get the ZR1’s Carbon Aero package deal, for optimum downforce. 

If you wish to see the tempo automobile in motion—in addition to what is bound to be a top-notch race—the Indy 500 is about for Sunday Could twenty fifth with the printed beginning at Midday on Fox.