The Jaguar XE SV Project 8 Is Now Laguna Seca's Fastest Saloon
It seems manufacturers are wanting to branch out when it comes to lap records. Once upon a time, an impressive Nurburgring time was sufficient, but recently we had Honda touring Europe’s most famous circuits to set front-wheel drive lap records, and Porsche’s 919 Evo snatching the outright record
Now, Jaguar has thrown its hat into the ‘lap record that’s not at the ‘Ring’ erm…ring. Having already nabbed the EV record at Laguna Seca with the I-Pace (since beaten by the yet-to-be-released ‘Lucid Air’), Jaguar came back to the Californian circuit with the shouty XE SV Project 8 all-wheel drive track weapon. The magic time was a 1:37.54, almost a second quicker than the previous fastest four-door, the Cadillac CTS-V. Alfa Romeo’s Giulia Quadrifoglio is now in second place with its 1:39.65, while the BMW M5 - which is also all-wheel drive and has exactly the same power output as the Jag - is a tenth and a half of a second further back.
Despite being limited to 300 units Project 8 hasn’t sold out just yet, so perhaps the Seca lap is a gentle reminder to lovers of exclusive and fast things that the £149,995 weapon is still very much available.
It shares precious little with the standard XE - to give you an idea of just how bespoke the vehicle is, it’s worth pointing out that JLR’s Special Vehicle Operations bods even had to move the headlights to accommodate the fat 265-section front tyres. It’s likely to be the last production Jaguar saloon to feature the company’s tried and tested 5.0-litre supercharged V8.
As for the lap itself, it’s the work of Randy Pobst, and is - as you’d expect - very committed. It’s definitely a video you want to turn the volume up for, too…
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Jaaaaaaag
Im gonna lap my Fiat 124 Spider around my block a couple times so it can have a lap record too
ha,
ive been doing that since i was 3
Is it me or Randy Pobst has probably set all the lap records of the last 5 years on Laguna Seca?
Half?
3/4 atleast
He’s a pretty underrated driver honestly. He sets most benchmark times that you see online. He drove some of the Viper ACRs record laps too
No it’s not
username checks out
all that power, aero, big tires, stiff suspension for 1 second :/ ….i think car manufacturers have reach there limit
The limit is still much higher, but it won’t be reached with anything that looks like a normal car
I feel an Assetto Corsa mod coming on…
Cars nowadays are getting faster and faster. But I think that we’re starting to see signs of what the limmits of the laws of physics are. If 10, 20 years ago, cars were still very much capable sports road cars, lately we can see them morph more and more into track cars since the speeds involved are higher and higher, the power and torque outputs get higher and higher, the forces involved are increasing exponentially and lap times are getting shorter and shorter; cars can’t keep up the increasing pace without lots of help from track cars solutions and technologies such as increasing focus on aerodynamics, track tires etc
Production Car my ass. They built this shit for the track not everyday use.
The numbers say it’s a production car, regardless of actual drivability
Production car is any car that has more than 25 examples.
[DELETED]
No thanks.
And for the people who haven’t already realised, don’t take anything he says seriously
Qian Li How much could you do about this guy?
Let’s keep this stuff off CT please, thanks.
All those (ugly) aero parts and it is barely faster than the beautiful and much cheaper Alfa Romeo. No wonder they don’t sell good.