Corvette ZR1 Marks The Most Powerful Indy 500 Pace Car In History

With the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race just around the corner, Chevrolet this week presented the pace car for this year’s event, the mega 1,064 horsepower 5.5-liter twin-turbocharged dual overhead cam Chevrolet Corvette ZR1. This will mark the 22nd time in the event’s history that the field has been paced by a Corvette, and the 36th time that the honor has been taken by a Chevrolet. The bowtie brand has a stranglehold on pace car duties at Indy, as it has been at the front of the field every year since GM used an Oldsmobile Bravada in 2001. The Bravada’s unimpressive 270 horsepower was barely up to the pace vehicle duties, though with 794 more ponies and plenty of downforce-inducing aero, the ZR1 shouldn’t have any issues whatsoever. 

“Chevrolet is proud that the 2025 Corvette ZR1, our fastest Corvette ever, will be the Official Pace Car for the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500,” said Scott Bell, global Chevrolet vice president. “With a top speed of 233 mph, the Corvette ZR1 is the perfect fit to lead the Indy 500 field to green.”

The 33-car field will be led to the green flag by Pro Football Hall of Famer and two-time Daytime Emmy Award winner, Michael Strahan. The Fox NFL Sunday analyst and Good Morning America co-host has been named the honorary pace car driver. Nine-time Indy 500 entrant Sarah Fisher has taken over the official pace car duties for all caution periods in the race since taking over for Johnny Rutherford in 2017. 

While the Corvette has been in production for 72 years as America’s most important sports car, it didn’t get the opportunity to pace the field at America’s most important race until 1978 to celebrate the car’s 25th anniversary. The malaise-era L48 fuel injected V8 under the hood of the pace car that year generated as little as 175 horsepower in California-legal trim. 

Back in 1978 this car was capable of a 7.8 second 0-60 time and a top speed of just 123 miles per hour. Fast forward to 2025, and the ZR1 will jump to sixty in 2.3 seconds and head on to a top speed 110 miles per hour faster than the ’78 pace car. It’s truly incredible how much the technology of speed has progressed in nearly 50 years. The C8-generation ZR1 is the quickest accelerating Corvette in history. 

“As we anticipate another iconic Indianapolis 500, we are once again excited to have the incredible American sports car Corvette pacing the field,” IMS and INDYCAR President J. Douglas Boles said. “The race car-like performance of the Corvette ZR1 makes it the perfect car to pace the Indianapolis 500, and the distinctive sound of the Chevrolet V8 engine will echo brilliantly inside the walls of IMS.”