Formula Jaguar
Posted by Sam Philip at 4:00PM on Monday 31 March, 2008 2 Comments
Forget all that Tata/Ford business. If you want proof that Jaguar is going to be just fine, take a look at this, the first car to arrive under the new Indian regime.
Well, sort of. There's a bit of journalistic licence here, I admit. This is the Formula Jaguar, a single-seater open cockpit racer built by the PalmerSport team to race the Bedford Autodrome circuit.
OK, it's about as road-illegal as they come, but the three-litre, 300bhp V6 is all Jag, as are a bunch of the other oily bits hidden under the aero body. And that's good enough for me.
As you might have guessed, the Formula Jaguar is quick. Actually, scrap that. It's not quick. It's literally mind-altering.
It takes me six, seven laps of PalmerSport's big West Circuit just to get my head around how quickly it picks up and accelerates, how quickly it can take corners, how quickly it crunches the air from my lungs when I hit the brakes.
Jonathan Palmer, track owner and former F1 racer, reckons the Formula Jaguar will hit 60mph in just under three seconds and top out at 185mph. But even that doesn't do justice to the sheer grip available as the wings pin the car to the track at speed - it'll corner at 2.3g.
I can't tell you how it measures up to an F1 or Formula 3000 racer, but compared to any road-going car, it's in a whole new league. A whole new dimension, perhaps.
Once I've made the quantum mental shift - braking half-a-minute later than my right foot is telling me to, ignoring persistent visions of a giant, messy crash - it's all surprisingly easy.
The Formula Jaguar has a paddleshift gearbox, so there's no complicated H-box or rock-hard race clutch to deal with: just point the nose in the right direction, slam the accelerator and hold on. Simple.
And then it starts to rain. Torrential, epic sheets of proper British rain that reduce my view through the helmet visor to blurry watercolour and turn a slick-tyred racer into a slippery, snarling little bugger. There's no traction control and electronic trickery to keep things in line, so it's down to driver skill. In my case, this is a problem.
With the back end stepping out at the first opportunity and the V6 yipping and wailing behind my head, I adopt the time-honoured racing method of praying, half-shutting my eyes and vaguely trying to keep the Jag's nose in front of its tail. A big spin, I decide, is inevitable - but at least all the rain should reduce the chances of a big spin becoming a big fiery spin.
But, despite an almost continual stream of lock-ups, half slides and a torrent of self-directed swearing loud enough to drown out a race engine, the big spin doesn't come. I make it back to the pit lane with all four wheels still attached and approximately a gallon of fear-infused sweat deposited somewhere in the cockpit. I'm not going to pretend otherwise: I was rubbish.
And you can be rubbish, too. If you want to discover why that F1 career never really happened for you, PalmerSport will happily show you how.
Oh, and if you're looking for ideas about where Jag should head over the next few years, Mr Tata, I'd advise you head on down to Bedford and check out what your newly acquired engines can do. Just a thought.
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2 Comments for "Formula Jaguar"
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Are you sure it's not just the same as a Palmer Audi?
Spot the difference, Mikeado. Audi, Jaguar. The FPA cars have 1.8 turbos, quite a difference.