Maxing an F-Type SVR
WITH it now having 575PS (567bhp in old money) 25PS (20bhp) more than it originally had, the F-Type R I drove over Blakey Ridge for this issue reminds me of the SVR model that had the same power.
Fast and uncompromising, it was Jaguar’s most powerful car until the 600PS XE SV Project 8 arrived three years later.
I was lucky enough to attend the SVR’s international press launch that took place in north eastern Spain in early 2016. As well as driving around the beautiful countryside for two days, Jaguar’s press team had also arranged a session on the 3.321-mile Motorland Aragón circuit which would allow the attending journalists to push the 200mph car to the limit.
Motoring scribes often try to out drive and out macho each other at these events meaning they can be chaotic. But since I’m both old and something of a scaredy cat, I usually take it easy, saying to the instructor that bravely sits in the passenger seat that I might be the slowest on the track, but they’ll definitely get home that evening.
Maybe it was due to my instructor being former JW technical editor, Ray Ingman, or maybe it was because with all-wheel-drive and ceramic brakes as standard, the SVR gave me a certain confidence, but I drove it faster than I had any car before or since. Admittedly nowhere close to its limits, but they were certainly way past mine.
The work of famed track designer, Hermann Tilke in conjunction with former Jaguar F1 driver, Pedro de la Rosa, Motorland Aragón is not only fast but it undulates in a way most flat circuits such as Silverstone could only dream about. There’s a 50m difference between its highest and lowest points while the maximum angle of one of its descents is 7.2 percent.
With these climbs often resulting in blind exits from corners, Motorland Aragón is not an easy circuit to master. But with Ray’s help, I started to brake later than I normally would and accelerate earlier.
Yet where the SVR really showed its abilities was on the longest of the circuit’s two straights. At three quarters of a mile, it allowed me to use all of the throttle in a way you never can on the road revealing the car’s terrific speed.
I NERVOUSLY WATCH 160MPH TO 170MPH COME AND GO MEANING I WAS NOW IN UNCHARTERED WATERS
Regularly reaching 160-165mph, I reckoned I could go even faster and so on my final lap, I screamed out of the tight left corner before the straight carrying as much speed as I could. With this being one of those blind exits I was talking about, I needed to line the car up without any point of reference. As I crested the brow of the hill perfectly, the long ribbon of black tarmac revealing itself ahead of me, I put my foot down, ha
