Fancy Yourself As A Racing Driver?

Hot Laps

The Sunday Times are running a new competition that could well see you being given the keys to a stunning new Jaguar XKR. Here’s the press release below, giving the low-down on the fun Fifth Gear team had when laying down some lap times!

The famous start/finish straight at Silverstone racing circuit resonated to the distinctive bellow of a brace of 10MY Jaguar XKR coupes this week as the stars of Channel 5’s Fifth Gear set about posting the time to beat in this year’s Sunday Times ingear Hot Laps competition.

Now in its second year, the competition gives members of the public the chance to post their very own Hot Lap time in one of the most powerful showroom-standard road cars on sale in Britain today.

And one lucky winner will drive away with a stunning XKR for six months.

Each month a minimum of four lucky Sunday Times readers will be chosen and invited, after a period of instruction, to complete a timed lap of the 1.64mile National Circuit at Silverstone in one of these high-performance cars. Their efforts will be filmed by an onboard camera and posted on Times Online so they, and other readers, can watch their moment of triumph or disaster.

The competition reaches its climax in late September when the fastest drivers are once again invited back to Silverstone for a final head-to-head and the chance to win one of the XKR coupes.

Geoff Cousins, UK Managing Director, Jaguar Cars, said: “‘The Jaguar XKR is a dream car for many people so the opportunity to drive one at speed around one of the UK’s most famous racing circuits is sure to be a once in a lifetime experience. Despite having more than 500bhp the new XKR really is a forgiving car to drive at any speed so we can expect some really competitive times. In fact Tiff and the Fifth Gear team could be hard pressed to stay at the head of the leader board over the summer“.

Sunday Times ingear journalist and Hot Laps Supremo Jason Dawe, said “The combination of one of Britain’s greatest motor racing circuits and one of Britain’s finest sports cars creates a unique opportunity for ingear readers. I know from experience that the XKR is super quick so it will be interesting to see how our readers get on. I’m expecting to see some very decent times with very little separating the quickest drivers. If the rules didn’t exclude me from competing I’d definitely be putting an entry in myself!”

You can follow video of the entire Hot Laps series on-line via the Sunday Times website at www.timesonline.co.uk/driving with the first video being the shootout between Fifth Gear petrolheads Tiff, Jonny, Tom and Vicki.

The new XKR features a 5.0-litre supercharged V8 delivering 510PS and 625Nm of torque, propelling it from 0-60mph in just 4.6 seconds. For more information on Jaguar please visit www.jaguar.co.uk.