Racecar customer Apex Motorsport made a satisfactory British GT debut at Rockingham

Car 46:         Jaguar XKR GT3                  Phil Keen / Steven KaneCar 47:         Jaguar XKR GT3                  Chris Ryan / Neil Cunningham

The Jaguar XKR GT3 made its British GT debut in the final round of the 2007 Championship at Rockingham Speedway this weekend as part of the continuing development programme set out by Apex Motorsport prior to the car’s full-time entry into international competition next year.   Two one-hour races were completed, with a 15th place finish being the best result of the weekend for Chris Ryan and Neil Cunningham.

Two examples of the beautiful, gun-metal grey car were entered for the weekend, enabling the team to gather ever more data and feedback from drivers about the relatively new-to-market car. 

In race one on Saturday afternoon, the cars struggled with a few handling issues which hampered their progress through the field, although Phil Keen rose as high as 8th before the mandatory pit stop.  He and Northern Irishman, Steven Kane, finished in 17th place, while the CBT-sponsored no. 47 car ended up in 20th place after Chris Ryan had suffered contact from behind due to an over-ambitious overtaking manoeuvre by a competitor.

In Sunday’s second one-hour race, Ryan and Cunningham took the chequered flag in 15th place but were unfortunately the only Jaguar XKR drivers to do so after car 46, supported by Kenmore Homes and QPC Ceramics, retired 12 laps into the race.  This followed damage after contact. 

Apex Motorsport Team Principal, Richard Lloyd, was sanguine about the outcome of the weekend’s racing. “We have to view this as an extension of our testing and the more laps you do, the more you learn.  It was important that we got to witness the strength of the competition first hand and we’ve achieved that.  We know what we’ve got to do to improve the product, and we’ll be focussing on that in the coming months prior to a full season of racing next year.”