I'm not convinced it was the fault of the car, the Z06 driver hit all the marks. Thx for the vid
No question that the P1 driver was in a bit over his head. Supercar owners often are. Lot's of money, but shy on skills and talent. We don't know how hard the Z06 driver was pushing. Not terribly hard from what I can tell. He was smooth, staying on line, being consistent. There's that old saying, that "slow is smooth and smooth is fast".
A substantial number of vintage racers are "gentleman" racers... They can't, or won't drive their car anywhere near its limits. They just like motoring around a race course, shall we say, "briskly". Then there's the minority who drive them in anger. Those guys are fun to watch. Some of them have a great deal of racing under their belts and it shows.
I have a love for the Can-Am cars of the 60's and early 70's. From 1965 on, I attended every Can-Am and USRRC race at Bridgehampton, and four Can-Am races at Watkins Glen (as well as two F1 races there). They were, in their day, the fastest road racing cars on earth. Where F1 and Can-Am races were held at the same circuit, the Can-Am cars were faster. Usually several seconds faster. In its heyday, nearly every top tier driver raced Can-Am. It also paid better than F1 at the time. Of course, an Indy 500 win paid vastly more than either.
Think about the technology that was introduced in Can-Am... Jim Hall led the way with his cutting edge Chaparrals. The 2E of 1966 was years ahead of everyone, including Lotus. Movable (two position) rear wing. Hall moved the radiators to the sides to free up the front of the car for an airfoil under the nose. This airfoil would normally direct air up through diffuser vents, up and over the nose. However, it worked along with the rear wing. One straights, Hall would push a pedal and the wing would go to low drag, low downforce. At the same time, the under nose wing would pop up flush to the undertray, and minimized drag up front. Hall could operate a foot pedal because he also introduced an automatic transmission.
All of these new innovations brought with them development bugs. It took most of the 1966 Can-Am season to sort the cars. However, once fully sorted, they were very fast. With Phil Hill in one car and Hall in a second, they utterly crushed the competition at Leguna Seca, finishing 1-2, with no one even close. In the last race of the season at Las Vegas, Hall had the pole, and Hill right behind him. Hill damaged his car's bodywork colliding with the always too aggressive Parnelli Jones. Still, he was in the hunt. Hall was beaten on the start by Surtees, but was clearly faster and it was obvious he would pass him. However, both Chaparrals suffered a failure of a casting on the airfoils. That meant that the wing was no longer controllable for pitch, and they fluttered badly as high speed. Hall parked his car, Hill had his wing removed (he was still in the championship hunt).
Hall's next car was the 2F coupe, designed for European competition. The aerodynamics were improved, and a 427 Chevy replaced the aluminum 327. As is common with that kind of upgrade, the engine power proved too much for the driveline, in this case, for the automatic transmission. It wasn't until season's end that they obtained the reliability needed. They won the last race of the season at Brands Hatch, and did so with relative ease. For the 1967 Can-Am season, Hall updated the 2E, redesignated the 2G. Like the 2F, it also ran a 427 Chevy. However, with most of their resources devoted to the 2F program, the 2G was nowhere near being sorted for the Can-Am season. The extra power was too much for the tires used the year before. Over the course of the season, Hall corrected that until it was competitive with McLaren at season's end. Still, he ran only one car to McLaren's two. Chaparral reliability wasn't much worse than McLaren's, but when you only have a single car, if it breaks, there's no second car to gain wins and points. Hall had designed a new car for 1968, the 2H. It was a complete departure from his previous designs, and it was proving to be a difficult car to get working well. So, he upgraded the 2G and ran the entire season with it. It was exceptionally fast at times, especially on high speed circuits. However, it proved to be insufficient to win, although he led often, only to break down, or suffer some issue that slowed the car. Hall was nearly killed in a spectacular crash at the season ending race at Las Vegas. Hall's Can-Am racing was over. For 1969 he rolled out the under-performing 2H and had hired John Surtees to drive it. It was awful and Hall bought a McLaren M12 for Surtees to drive for the rest of the season. Surtees did well enough to finish 4th in the championship.
For 1970, Hall had another technological marvel. This was the 2J vacuum car. Aside from a 7.7 liter Chevy, it also had a second 2-stroke engine that turned two exhaust fans. The car was sealed to the road surface by Lexan skirts. Just starting the 2-stroke in the pits sucked the car down two inches on its suspension. There were no wings. The 2J cornered faster than anything else in the series, it also braked better. Its boxy shape garnered many comments, such as it "looks like the crate they shipped it in". However, when it rolled out on the track, the snickering turned into gasps. It debuted at Watkins Glen, qualifying 3rd with Jackie Stewart driving. In the race, it turned the fastest lap. Due to mechanical trouble, it retired. It did, however, put a fright into the rest of the teams. Vic Elford next drove the car, and it proved 2 seconds faster than either of the Team McLaren cars. In just four appearances, it set Can-Am on its ear with three poles, four fastest laps and three course records. Reliability would come eventually. Everyone knew that 1971 would bring a fully sorted 2J, and reports that it was breaking course records in shakedown runs prompted the bigger teams to howl like scalded dogs. They complained that it would make every car obsolete and effectively end Can-Am. As if four consecutive championships by McLaren didn't count... So, under pressure, the SCCA banned the 2J. They claimed that the fans were illegal movable aerodynamic surfaces. Even though the FIA disagreed, the ban was not lifted. Jim Hall walked away from Can-Am. McLaren won another championship. However, 1972 changed everything. The Penske 900 hp twin turbo 917/10 Porsche crushed McLaren in 1972, and the 1,100 hp (over 1,500 hp using qualifying boost) 917/30 was even faster in 1973. However, McLaren had already seen the grim future and abandoned Can-Am after 1972 to concentrate on F1 and Indianapolis.
Hall moved on to Indy cars, where he introduced the first ground effects Indy car in 1980, the 2K. It won Indy, and the USAC and CART championships that year.
Those amazing days of minimal rules and vast horsepower are gone now. Everything, every class has a firm formula that largely limits innovation in comparison to the old days of Can-Am. Even LMP-1 is boring... The GT category is hamstrung by numbing rules. F1 has become routine. In the past decade we had the Ferrari show, the Red Bull Show, and now the Mercedes show. Racing desperately needs a new formula libre series like the old Group 7 class, where almost anything goes...
Chaparral 1:
Chaparral 2A:
Chaparral 2B:
Chaparral 2C:
Chaparral 2D (European endurance racing. Chaparrals won at Sebring and Nurburgring):
Chaparral 2E:
Chaparral 2F:
Chaparral 2G:
Comparing the 2G of '67 to 2G of '68:
Chaparral 2H:
Chaparral 2J:
Chaparral 2K: