SILVERSTONE

The toytown 4-corner National circuit, usually providing as much thrill and drama as a ride on a kid’s roundabout, time spent in Luffield mentally calculating the cost of the tyre mark you can see yourself leaving as you wait for the understeer to go away. Silverstone’s own chief ARDS instructor tells his new trainees that if you can’t master a 4-corner circuit then you need to consider a new hobby like needlecraft.

With two long straights and few corners it’s a classic grid expected, V12s first, fast Es, followed by the more insane Ds somewhere from about p7 or 8.

And then the race gods spared us all the tedium, they added that one magic ingredient. Rain!

TESTING

Hardly any Jags out at all. Alex Harrison getting his first taste of the track and trying a brand new car to boot, the Kutuka crew have strapped together a new machine to replace the car written off at Mallory and it only fired up ten minutes before testing started, so Harrison has his brain extracted and sent into a melee of FIA Ferraris and M3s to see what happened.

A couple of saloons spotted in the maelstrom, the Cann XJ40 submerged beneath more carbon fibre wings than you can shake a stick at, but mostly testing was about the other maniacs seeing how much money they could spend on repairs.

Late in the day the Kutuka car suffered a rear hub failure and lost a wheel, a trait which has by now become quite familiar to the entire XJS/XJ40/X300 outboard brake community. With 4 of these in the last 12 months it has become a point of concern. At least this red-flagged the session to prove that an old XJS can still upset the posh folk in one way or another.

The other Harrison stole the last of the red car’s track time, and the FIA boys didn’t disappoint, an M3 very gracefully battering a Ferrari, which helpfully caught fire. Jaguar add their name to the prestigious carnage by driving an XJS through the corona of flying debris and making off with some expensive carbon fibre souvenirs wedged in the air intakes.

Not a surprise in that chaos to see the day cut short.

QUALIFYING

Mixed saloons and XJS again. And a wet track. Bloody chaos, brilliant! No good trying to set a laptime of course, but it’s as wet as a duck’s nuts and there is ferocious entertainment trying to find a fast line round a corner when there are two oversteering cars already in it.

In these conditions the T1R-shod XJS is usually king, and so it is today. In fact in these conditions there is usually none faster than Chris Palmer, and he takes pole by a mile, over a second faster than Lyddall.

Lyddall in p2 and already worrying about Palmer’s start, Merrett lies third after literally wrestling the car round, more by force of will than control input, he’s a further 8/10ths back.

Coppock 4^th on a pretty much identical time, but Ray Hill puts his class E 5^th, and there’s only a tenth in it, potentially on target to cause a real upset from there.

The Harrison duo 6^th and 7^th, both forgot to put wet tyres on for qualifying and have no-one but themselves to blame. The younger one lies 6^th, the younger-looking one 7^th but ¾ of a second in it.

Drage 8^th by another 1.2 seconds, but he lines up alongside his class D rival with customary nemesis Webster just behind. Burton’s V12 makes up row 5.

2 seconds back and new boy Nicholls debuts in the ex-Robbie special, sporting wheels of such dazzling orange that a marshall was caught dry-humping them in assembly. MacVicar identical pace in 12^th, with Crossley too on the same time. A 4 second gap back to Beecham is a clear indication that the orange paint tin has been applied to the wrong car, whoever did Nicholls’ wheels should really have given their attention to car 34. It should be orange Bob, please make it orange.

Still a fairly big gap from front to back, Palmer’s pole time is 14% faster than the last XJS, some 12 seconds in it in only 1.64 miles of damp tarmac. Some blame may be attributed to the mixed qualifying, slower cars having to spend more time getting out of the way than setting a time.

RACE

Another split race, the saloons are being released after the XJS so this is a very busy track indeed, it’s only an 80 second lap in the wet, and the front saloons will hit the last XJS within 3 laps, the first saloon is lapped by the lead XJS on lap 4. In the space of 6 minutes then the Jags occupy the entire track.

It’s not an easy place to pass in the dry, but in the wet it’s a different story, and there was in fact some overtaking for a change. The tone for the race was set off the line, by turn 2 most of the mistakes had been made.

Palmer came off the line first, stayed first and led into Copse by a healthy margin. Lyddall, Merrett and Coppock struggled a little more to find the traction and Ray Hill tried to set off in 3^rd gear, which meant Alex Harrison’s blinding start put him from 6^th to 2^nd heading into Copse, weaving the red car through the V12 chicane and braking deep into the corner.

This held Lyddall out so wide he was able to cut back inside and drag race into Becketts, getting ahead of Harrison as they entered the braking zone.

Merrett lays the power down better than those behind and stays 4^th, Coppock 5^th. Despite the gearchange error Hill doesn’t lose many places at all, other than Harrison’s remarkable launch he manages to hold his ground.

The other Harrison goes one better than Hill and sets off in 4^th gear instead of 2nd, dropping to almost dead last off the line, the stream of incoming XJS parting round his slow car and leaving him with it all to do.

Into Becketts and Palmer brakes too late, the car won’t slow in time, won’t make the corner, and sails off the road straight into the gravel trap, stuck fast.

Lyddall now leads, but as he brakes for Becketts he too leaves it too late, and skates into the gravel after Palmer, the two cars parked in formation, race over.

It’s bizarrely Alex Harrison, usually last of the late brakers, who loses his nerve first and hits the pedal early, he makes the corner, and finds himself leading, 6^th to 1^st in under half a mile.

Drage benefits from Harrison’s error and has scrambled up to 7^th, promoted to 5^th by the dynamic duo in the grit, and will be 4^th by the end of the lap as Hill loses out in lap 1 chaos and drops to 6^th.

The elder Harrison is back to 5^th by the end of lap 1, somehow, and is on Drage’s tail as they cross the line.

Hill has been having far too much fun playing with the grip levels and has slipped to 6^th, the familiar sight of the green machine of Webster close astern.

MacVicar makes a brave assault on lap 1 and is up to 8^th, having disposed of Burton and Nicholls, who follow about 2 seconds behind, Nicholls with a feisty Crossley in the mirror only 0.2 seconds back and Beecham, already faster than in quali, only a second back at the end of the first lap.

As the field head into Copse the second time the leader is still Harrison, 1.5 up on Merrett, whose car is still looking very lively, Coppock half a second back and gently winding himself up to speed. Yellow flags at Beckets though as the heroes in orange try a live snatch (steady!) on the striken duo, Palmer’s car is quickly dragged to safety, but Lyddall’s towing eye comes clean off the car and his freshly-painted machine is left in harms way at the most likely accident spot on the track for the entire race. Yellow flags will stay out at Beckets half the race, in theory making overtaking impossible there.*

Lap 2 and Burton finds the grip, using the 6 litre torque to take his place back from MacVicar, but with Webster already 6 seconds up the road it is a fight for 8^th that isn’t planning to hunt down 7^th, this is a separate race altogether.

Lap 3, and Webster watches as Hill misses his braking point and skates onto the run-off at Copse, the Bearded one up to 6^th and comfortable with staying there thank you, no heroics at Camp Kermit today. MacVicar loses out to Nicholls as the latter gets to grips with his car, but Burton has already made the most of his clear air and made a break for it, the V12 is 7 seconds clear and still gaining, even in these conditions that’s game over.

Lap 4 and battle is joined, as Coppock decides he’s settled into the car and powers past Merrett into Beckets. The leader is nearly 3 seconds up the road, and Coppock has designs on changing that situation.

Drage has Harrison squarely in his mirrors, the initial gap from the startline error is gone and it’s a straight class D fight. Harrison makes 3 attempts on the exit of Copse and backs out of it each time for fear of a yellow flag infringement, lap 5 sees the pass happen cleanly to release him after the still-struggling Merrett.

Coppock now surgically excises Alex Harrison’s lead, the latter perhaps a little cautious, a forgivable error with no car to chase and in the lead of a race for only the second time, but with long straights to make the power count Harrison had only cornering speed in his favour and that caution is letting the big V12 close in fast. By lap 8 the gap is a second and Harrison has gone defensive.

The saloons are thoroughly mixed in by now, lead saloon is halfway up the XJS pack, and will make it as far as p7 overall, the two races clearly interfering with each other, less critical for the slower XJS than the faster saloons.

The pack has now largely settled, the other remaining duel Merrett’s class E car vs Harrison’s D, and conditions favouring the heavier machine. Merrett is struggling under braking, the car wild at the tail, and is lifting for Woodcote as his car comes on cam and drops in a bucketful of power right in the middle of a fast, wet corner.

This fight has been joined from lap 6, and it’s a classic power vs handling scrap. Huge pace difference on the exit of Copse sees Harrison overtake twice, but the class E car powers back ahead into Becketts, despite 5 overtaking attempts Merrett will hold 3^rd place by 0.2 seconds at the flag.

The position at the front is not so complex though, because Coppock has caught Harrison, and with a good drive out of Copse powers into the lead on lap 9. Unwilling to give in so easily, Harrison tries to take the place back and gets the nose up the inside at Luffield, a twitch of oversteer and the move fails, game over. Coppock drags a 2 second lead out over the next lap, and never looks back, he takes a clean and confident win.

Harrison never quits the chase, footage shows his car flashing the lights at backmarkers 30 seconds after the chequered flag, but it’s not enough to close down the leader again, the drying track is no longer negating horsepower.

It’s something of a procession through the field and there’s a significant step,the top 4 covered by 8 seconds, but Drage in p5 is 16  seconds down the road, a further 15 ahead of Webster in 6^th, some 9 seconds clear of Hill, who has spent the afternoon entertaining the spectators with a series of slides to delight the oversteer fans. With p8 Burton another 22 seconds down who can blame him?

Nicholls leads MacVicar home by 3 seconds, Crossley and Beecham lapped by the leader on the last lap, bringing home 11^th and 12^th.

Class results are unusual with the usual pair missing, G victor and race winner Coppock, also setting fastest lap in class by 6.2 seconds. Burton is 2^nd in class.

In E Alex Harrison wins the class, but Merrett in 2^nd takes the faster lap by 4 tenths. Webster takes 3^rd.

D win and fastest lap to Harrison by 2.5 seconds, Drage second, new boy Nicholls 3^rd.

Overall fastest lap to Coppock from Harrison by 0.021 seconds, the wet weather clearly at work.

*reports from drivers are that some overtaking took place under yellow flags, but as these moves were not penalised and no footage has been presented of this we cannot report the rumoured infringements.

XJS WINNERS AND LOSERS

Winners

Lawrence Coppock – the two fastest cars throw it all away and give him a nice relaxed few laps to find the grip and the spot to lay all that power on the nicest bit of tarmac he can locate to blow past his only remaining serious challenger. A car now working well, reliably and with the greatest amount of grunt currently on the grid, the track just dry enough to use it.

Alex Harrison – a stunning start from 6^th to 2^nd and then led for ten laps in a car that was thrown together in a week and hadn’t turned a wheel until yesterday morning, class win first time at the track, second overall, it’s a good day in anyone’s book.

The under-6 fan club – Jaguar drivers have a whole horde of small children watching their exploits these days, and the wet conditions plus a number of rather sideways Jags of all shapes and sizes caused whoops of shrill excitement heard as far away as Youtube.

Losers

Lyddall/Palmer – One after the other, both threw the lead of this race into the gravel. The irony is neither were under any real pressure at the time. Bad, bad boys, go to your room.

Andrew Harrison – 4^th place sounds alright, but if he hadn’t tried to set off in 4^th gear it would have been a much, much better day for his team. Idiot. That said, Palmer’s DNF puts him unexpectedly back in contention despite a very average performance in the race.

Paul Merrett – the handling on that car looked truly horrible. We award points for wrestling it back under control, but that thing’s not right mate, not at all.

Race reports – half of the official reports for this race have the story of the front end of this race completely wrong. Sorry, we don’t usually mind, but it’s just not true, didn’t happen. We were 2 of the 4 of those cars, this is what went on at the front. I know, it looks like we’re being shirty, and who cares anyway, but if it’s worth writing about it’s worth getting right. You can slap us later for our impudence. We might like that.