In the hands of Dawie Olivier, National Aftersales Manager at Jaguar Land Rover and experienced racer and rally driver, and with Motorsport South Africa in attendance to document the occasion, the 405kW supercharged V8 F-Type charged into the record books with a top speed run at the Upington Airport in the Northern Cape.
“Not only do we say that racing is in our blood – we go out there and prove it,” said Richard Gouverneur, Managing Director of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) South Africa and sub-Sahara Africa. “Aside from being inspired by our history of racing and land speed records, we also wanted to show off the innovation, performance and safety of our vehicles. A car that’s capable of reaching 300km/h safely is many times safer at legal and safe speeds.”
For the record to be official, two runs have to be completed in both directions while timekeeping officials from Motorsport South Africa measure speed over a one kilometre distance. On the uphill section of the F-TYPE’S record-setting run it achieved a speed of 288.33km/h, while the complementing downhill run saw it crack the magical 300km/h mark with an officially-measured speed of 301.03km/h. The land speed record comprises the average of the two runs, and now sits at 294.68km/h – besting the previous record of 287.63km/h set in 2002, with Mike Griffiths behind the wheel of a Porsche 911 GT2.
