Jaguar XKR review:
(Tested on TGTT)
Before: It's alright, but not brilliant. Competent enough at cornering, but not too good at inspiring confidence while doing so. Feels and sounds like a muscle car, all the torque comes in very early on, at something like 2000-3000rpm. But like a muscle car, the power output isn't as convincing as the noise. A supercharged V8 with all the engine modifications on, I was expecting an output closer to 800hp, but even with the race exhaust (which sounds hollow and fake compared to the stock one), it can only go up to 725hp. I'm not saying that's a low amount of hp, but take a look at the Ford GT, that with a supercharged V8 at max tune could go up to 850hp. Now the test was done on racing softs which sort of covers up the car's faults with miles of grip, and I won't switch to sport softs because I know what will happen. It will understeer, and then switch to murderous oversteer and roast its tyres in a lap, I know this because I've tried it before. I spent most the lap smearing the track with tyre marks and understeering into the grass. With racing softs, it's more controlled, but it still understeers a fair amount until you nail it. Then it'll switch to a rather unpredictable slide. So, not that good a track car, but it did a 1:09.765, which is reasonable. Just not brilliant, which would be what you'd expect after coughing up nearly 500,000 of your own money.
After: Well, it still feels like driving a 5 litre supercharged whale. It still feels enormous and distant when you drive it, and it still doesn't grip and go like it's 696hp and 1360kg would suggest. The brakes feel like they don't work, the handling less unpredictable but still wild enough to make you crap your pants when cornering quickly and it still has a slight feeling of unwillingness, like it doesn't want to shred its tyres and do mind blowing laptimes. In fact, I was really struggling to pull of a lap with any significant improvement. My fastest lap with this setup was a 1:08.638, just a second better. Which is forgivable as it was an improvement, but you get the feeling that what it wants is to just be trundling down to the shops, scaring children with its loud, thundering bark. It feels like it doesn't want to be the 'R' model, like it just wants to be a normal XK.
Shame, because I really wanted to like this car. I'm a huge fan of the loud barks the V8 makes, and the big slides it can pull. But as a serious track car, it's a bit of a disappointment, to say the least.
Laptime
1:09.765(before)
1:08.638(after)