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"We&amp;#039;re standing by the track, at the beginning of the esses, as the most important race car ever built whips by on its first lap. It&amp;#039;s a 1967 Lotus 49, the greatest Formula 1 car in history, the machine that changed road racing more than any other. And on top of that, as it pitches under braking and the driver&amp;#039;s hands dart up and this animal yowl cascades from its exhaust, the Lotus is simply beautiful.  In a moment like this, it&amp;#039;s tempting to say that it could be 1967 all over again. But the man behind the wheel is Caterham F1 test driver Alexander Rossi, 21, currently the only U.S. driver in F1. He is young and confident and has never driven a car like this. Rossi is screaming around the weeks-old Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, the first and only purpose-built Formula 1 track in the United States. And we&amp;#039;re here to see if this 46-year-old Lotus is faster than the best American supercar money can buy. No, it couldn&amp;#039;t be any other time than right now. On the simplest level, we went to Austin to compare lap times. But beyond that, we wanted to know one thing: How far have we come?      It&amp;#039;s an all-time great barroom argument, and it has a different answer every time you ask. But we&amp;#039;re concerned with right now, and right now, part of the answer comes from the fact that we went to Austin to ask the question. This country&amp;#039;s F1 record is spotty at best. Only two world champion titles\u2014Phil Hill in 1961, Mario Andretti in 1978\u2014have come from our shores, a pittance compared with places like Germany or England, and it&amp;#039;s been 35 years since an American won a Grand Prix. From 1961 to 1980, F1 races were held at the permanent road course outside Watkins Glen, New York, but after that, we were treated to years of makeshift tracks laid out on the streets of unappreciative cities or crammed inside preexisting ovals. One was even half-assed into the parking lot of a Las Vegas casino. The Circuit of the Americas (COTA) is a noble experiment. It&amp;#039;s an all-in bet that Americans will actually show up to an F1 race year after year, and in numbers large enough to justify a $400 million facility. The track was co-developed by German architect Hermann Tilke, F1&amp;#039;s de facto official circuit designer, essentially legitimizing it. And when the vastly entertaining U.S. Grand Prix went off without a hitch last November, Americans were given hope that their home and the world&amp;#039;s coolest sport might actually get along. The same optimism informed our choice of street car. The outgoing 638-hp Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 was the only possible choice. Its performance is world-class; its components\u2014magnetorheological dampers, carbon-ceramic brakes, carbon-fiber bodywork\u2014are high-tech but simple. And it&amp;#039;s as fundamentally American as a car can be, with its supercharged V-8, patchy family history, and relative-bargain $113,595 sticker. Chiefly, the ZR1 is the first American car to genuinely measure up, one of the few machines that can make a Ferrari driver think he&amp;#039;s wasted his money. It&amp;#039;s not the prettiest or the priciest, but it&amp;#039;s the hometown star, the first truly compelling contender we&amp;#039;ve had. Its humble origins and approachable talent make it one of the most impressive supercars on the market. And the Lotus deserves nothing less than the best competition. The 49 marked the apex of its time, before aerodynamic grip and massive corporate sponsorship changed racing forever. It&amp;#039;s the golden era writ large and the coolest artifact from the last time America had an emotional, long-term relationship with Formula 1. But where are we now?  When the day came to find out and we arrived at COTA with our Corvette, the Lotus had yet to show, and it was raining. We actually thought we were just killing time when we hopped in the ZR1 for a ride with America&amp;#039;s only Formula 1 driver. Rossi would be the first to remind you that, at the moment, he&amp;#039;s a mere test driver. The key part is &amp;quot;at the moment.&amp;quot; Rossi is well-spoken and polite, but like many young athletes, he has no time for the idea that he might not make it. That philosophy is the don&amp;#039;t-look-down part of the tightrope walk that is Rossi&amp;#039;s career. For him, life&amp;#039;s natural progression has been karts (at 6) to Formula BMW (16) to Formula BMW champion (17) to Formula Renault 3.5 (20) to Caterham Formula 1 test driver. From here, he expects the pattern to continue: full-time race driver (not this year, but soon), points winner (after a suitable period of adjustment), race winner (shortly after), and finally world champion (in the inevitable fullness of time). But today, as he pulls out of the pits in the ZR1, he&amp;#039;s just enjoying his first time on track in a sports car. &amp;quot;The car&amp;#039;s quick,&amp;quot; he says. Well, yes. &amp;quot;They kept some crazy in it, too,&amp;quot; he adds, as the Corvette&amp;#039;s tail steps out at 130 mph. Rossi&amp;#039;s hands flash across the wheel; there&amp;#039;s a slide and a stab of correction, but everything else is done with the throttle. &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t wait to see what it&amp;#039;ll do once the rain stops.&amp;quot; From the right seat, the car seems to be going like hell. Around COTA&amp;#039;s parabolic, third-gear Turn 15 complex, the Corvette is on the ragged edge, its rearvtires biting and slipping in equal parts. But a glance at Rossi shows that he&amp;#039;s steering with just his left hand, precise little dabs at the wheel, while his right makes the universal rolling gesture for C&amp;#039;mon, c&amp;#039;mon, get on with it. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not fair, really\u2014the car&amp;#039;s just so traction-limited here,&amp;quot; he says, shrugging, and we laugh. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m just chasing it constantly.&amp;quot; So we powerslide around the track and wait for the Lotus. An hour or so later, a nondescript Ford pickup pulls into the paddock, a small gray box trailer behind it. The magazine&amp;#039;s scattered crew materializes the moment the Lotus is pushed into the garage. We snap pictures. We tell each other facts and figures we already know. But mostly, we stare. Wispy aluminum panels; a 410-hp, 9000-rpm Cosworth DFV V-8; chunky treaded tires. This was Lotus at its romantic peak, with the 49 the purest expression of its ideals, almost custom-made for one of the greatest drivers it or any other team would ever field. Our car, chassis R2, was first raced by Scottish world champion Jim Clark, Lotus founder Colin Chapman&amp;#039;s friend and the era&amp;#039;s standout driver. R2 was Clark&amp;#039;s car for &amp;#039;67, the 49&amp;#039;s first year and the season in which either he or his teammate, the 49-shod Graham Hill, grabbed pole in every race they entered. (Nine, for the record.) The r\u00E9sum\u00E9 continues: The 49 was designed for the DFV\u2014at 155 wins, the most successful powerplant in F1 history\u2014and vice versa, and was the first car to compete with it. In post-1967 49B configuration, R2 was the first F1 car to wear sponsor livery instead of national colors, after Chapman groundbreakingly sold Team Lotus&amp;#039;s naming rights to cigarette brand Gold Leaf. It was also the last dominant F1 car to race without wings, but as a 49B, one of the first to race with them. It used its drivetrain as a stressed member (see sidebar, page 49), being not the first F1 car to do so but the first to apply the technique so well that everyone copied it. Following Clark&amp;#039;s death in a Formula 2 race in 1968, R2 was raced by Jackie Oliver and Mario Andretti. It was later bought by American racer Pete Lovely, is now owned by collector Chris MacAllister, and has been restored by Classic Team Lotus to the way it ran in the 1967 U.S. Grand Prix, which it won. Now, we&amp;#039;re separated from history by nothing but air and respect for its attendant mechanic. Neil Brown is a compact, ruggedly handsome Englishman, a former Lotus F1 and Champ Car wrench. The idea that he is there to actually run the car for us doesn&amp;#039;t seem real until, after a dozen checks and a squirt of fuel down each intake trumpet, he fires it up. No one present chooses to wear earplugs. Except, of course, for Brown, who sees the 49 all the time and holds no visible sentiment for it. As he puts it, the period tires are crap and the suspension doesn&amp;#039;t work with modern rubber; it&amp;#039;s prone to fuel starvation; the sequential, H-pattern ZF five-speed is fiddly and never seems happy. We may be in awe, but he&amp;#039;s at work. So is Rossi. Maybe it&amp;#039;s because of his age, but the car doesn&amp;#039;t seem to be a holy thing for him. He silently watches it idle, from a distance. Like many pro drivers, Rossi seems to view most cars as tools. He drives a Kia Rio when in London for work, a Chevy pickup when home in California. You have to wonder where the Corvette sits in his personal spectrum. &amp;quot;I think it&amp;#039;s great, but it&amp;#039;d be perfect with another 300 hp,&amp;quot; he says after the rain ends, driving the ZR1 around to help dry the track. &amp;quot;Maybe a thousand less pounds, too? I&amp;#039;m sure it&amp;#039;s a good street car . . . also, I guess the stereo could be better.&amp;quot; (For anyone who ever wanted a streetable race car with a real stereo, an F1 hotshoe has just validated your thoughts.)  After we come in, Brown decides it&amp;#039;s safe enough to do a few easy laps and let Rossi get a feel for the car. Brown talks him through driving the 49\u2014stay above 4000 rpm for oil pressure; don&amp;#039;t push until the water hits 50 degrees, preferably 90; first gear often jams the box, so start in second. Everyone listens intently, just in case Rossi turns into a pumpkin and it becomes our solemn duty to drive the car in his place. Then the starter engages.  After a few moments of scrutiny, Rossi screams up COTA&amp;#039;s climbing main straight with a resonant shriek. He brakes with a puff of tire smoke and plunges left into the track&amp;#039;s parachute-drop Turn Two, and to hell with 1967 or right now, the moment is just timeless. Rossi peels off three laps and returns to the pit, killing the engine with a whomp. When he lifts his visor, his eyes are grinning, a little surprised. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s quite quick!&amp;quot; His debrief, as befits him, is quick, concise, dense. He found the car surprisingly drivable, even on cold, treaded rubber, with sharp but consistent responses. The straight-line speed is surprising\u2014he was ready for the lack of grip but not the always-there wallop under his right foot. There&amp;#039;s no real drama; the engine gives good, smooth power, the chassis offers plenty of warning when necessary. The car never feels planted, but it&amp;#039;s not unpredictable. It&amp;#039;s a physical car, and he&amp;#039;s glad he kept up his neck training. During this playback, Rossi never stops smiling. And neither does anyone else, until Brown informs us that the engine has a fueling problem and won&amp;#039;t restart. More lapping will have to wait. I ask Rossi if he wishes he&amp;#039;d been able to race the Lotus. The answer is a quick no. &amp;quot;This car is more . . . &amp;#039;fun,&amp;#039; I guess, in that you&amp;#039;re sliding. But the current F1 car\u2014it&amp;#039;s instant responses, gearshifts as quick as your fingers can move. The entire thing is almost a disconnect from reality. You&amp;#039;re doing things you don&amp;#039;t think are possible\u2014you turn-in, bam, at 180 mph and it just does it, just like that. In that sense, the ZR1 is more &amp;#039;fun&amp;#039; in the wet but more rewarding [and capable] in the dry. So yes, the Lotus is more &amp;#039;fun.&amp;#039;  But not as ultimately rewarding.&amp;quot; Every time he says &amp;quot;fun,&amp;quot; he makes little air quotes with his fingers. &amp;quot;Modern F1 cars don&amp;#039;t break,&amp;quot; he adds. &amp;quot;You can launch over a curb to get a tenth and not worry. Especially in qualifying, you&amp;#039;re going to hammer the crap out of it. It&amp;#039;s not romance. You use 100 percent of your focus, all your talent, all the time.&amp;quot; But isn&amp;#039;t there a kind of romance in the finesse needed? Don&amp;#039;t you need mechanical sympathy? &amp;quot;Why?&amp;quot; he says, impatient. He glances over at Brown, whose hands are buried in the 49&amp;#039;s engine. &amp;quot;Tell me, where&amp;#039;s the romance in that?&amp;quot; There is, of course, no romance in a car that won&amp;#039;t start. But this sort of problem was common in 1967, and for a long time after. Parts were often first tested while actually racing. That this very car won its first race, the 1967 Dutch G.P., puts it high on the list for period reliability. The sun comes out. After a few hours of work, and with the track now dry, Brown allows that the Lotus should be good for a few laps. For most of this time, the Chevrolet has been waiting patiently, almost neglected. Given the ZR1&amp;#039;s average-Vette looks, it&amp;#039;s easy to forget the car&amp;#039;s potency\u2014its V-8 produces 102 hp per liter, behaves itself in traffic, and comes with a 100,000-mile warranty. The Cosworth is stronger (137 horses per liter) but needs a five-figure rebuild every 1300 miles. As Rossi thunders the ZR1 out of the pits, it occurs to us that, if any car is going to outrun the 49 here, we want it to be this one.  Rossi drives almost clinically smooth laps, drifting occasionally, getting smoother as he warms to the car. When we turned on the test gear a few laps in, he more than had the ZR1&amp;#039;s measure. The Corvette&amp;#039;s brake lights were a telltale\u2014he used his F1 background, with its emphasis on smooth brake release, to balance the ZR1&amp;#039;s 3353-pound bulk. &amp;quot;I know when I&amp;#039;ve done all I can,&amp;quot; he says, parking the Chevy. Final time: 2:20.65. Slightly faster than the Lotus&amp;#039;s best wet lap. With that, the 49 was wheeled out, fired up, and nervously squinted at by everyone. When it warmed, Rossi ripped back onto the tarmac. The in-car footage\u2014search the R&amp;amp;amp;T YouTube channel for &amp;quot;Lotus 49 COTA&amp;quot;\u2014shows that, while Rossi&amp;#039;s corner lines didn&amp;#039;t vary much, he needed less room in the Lotus than in the ZR1, even though the F1 car spent more time sliding. He used sharp flicks of the wheel, driving predictably like a man raised on slicks. And again, he got smoother as he went. Rossi tended to apex late in the Corvette, and so it was with the Lotus; in COTA&amp;#039;s tight back section, he seemed willing to push the shorter-wheelbase 49 more. On his fastest lap in each car, he drove so hard coming into the track&amp;#039;s parabolic right (the same sweeper that gave the Corvette the understeering yips) that he bobbled it sideways dramatically. The hiccup may have cost him a few tenths. It was something to see, and thankfully, without the high cockpit or stiff springing of a modern formula car, it was visible from trackside: the suspension compressing and releasing, the tiny body pitching and swaying, Rossi&amp;#039;s arms rotating, that howler of an engine. It couldn&amp;#039;t be a perfect run; the Lotus&amp;#039;s short-track gearing, which we were unable to change (unlike most open-wheelers, gear swaps in a 49 require transaxle removal) had it running out of revs for the last few seconds of each straight, the car hovering around 165 mph. Still, the lap time speaks for itself: 2:17.51. A victory for the Lotus. But not a defeat for the Corvette. Our data showed the Lotus accelerating harder out of corners and hitting its top speed earlier on each straight. The two cars brake from the same speed in roughly the same distance, and amazingly, mid-corner speed is near-identical; through the esses, the Lotus and ZR1 were virtually on top of each other. In other words, while you can&amp;#039;t discount power-to-weight ratio, the 2013 Corvette ZR1 goes into and through a corner just as hard as the absolute best Formula 1 car of 1967. Lap times are lap times, but if this isn&amp;#039;t a win-win, it&amp;#039;s hard to say what is. And think about this: As much as we revere what the Lotus represents, its place in history is fixed. Its time was legendary, but its time is over. Not so for anything or anyone else here. The ZR1 has had its day, but there will be faster Corvettes, and soon, one will run a 2:17 or better around the Circuit of the Americas. Which in turn will be part of F1 for the rest of its contract, hopefully longer. The same goes for our man Rossi, whose career has much to go. His progress so far is encouraging; that he got there without a famous name or the backing of a massive corporation, all the better. So that&amp;#039;s where we are right now. It&amp;#039;s a new golden age of speed, and we have the great good luck to not just be here for it, but to realize it. You don&amp;#039;t have to look back at 1967 to see greatness. It&amp;#039;s happening every day, not just in Texas, not just on the F1 circuit. Not just to guys like Rossi but to you and me and everyone watching. So pay attention. Because things are amazing, and they&amp;#039;re moving faster all the time. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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