The tenth-anniversary edition of the Jaguar Simola Hillclimb was a successful affair for Team Jaguar, with a total of eight podium finishes to show for all eight entries across various categories.
All eyes were on Mark and Gavin Cronje who contested an epic brother-versus-brother battle in a pair of showroom-standard, 423kW F-TYPE SVRs. The two World Champion karters traded fastest laps over the weekend's respective practice and qualifying sessions in the lead-up to Sunday's King of the Hill grand finale for road and supercars.
In the end, Gavin Cronje scooped top honours in Class A7 with a best time of 45.096 seconds - just three tenths ahead of older brother Mark. Juan van Rensburg, in a third, privately entered F-TYPE secured a clean podium sweep for Jaguar with a time of 47.333 seconds.
The Cronje duo went on to contest the Top 10 shootout for Road and Supercars, where Gavin put in another sterling lap of 45 seconds flat, scoring second overall by the narrowest of margins to the near-standard Nissan GT-R of Reghard Roets. Mark made a crucial mistake in the grand finale and ended up 10th overall on Sunday afternoon.
RACING LEGENDS
South African racing legends Deon Joubert, Shaun Watson-Smith and Mike Briggs put on a thrilling spectacle in the EV and Hybrid category with a trio of all-electric Jaguar I-PACEs.
In the end, it was Briggs who took the laurels with Joubert runner-up and Watson-Smith rounding out the race-within-a-race to determine which former Touring Car ace was quickest. Mike and Deon also claimed the second and third place trophies in Class A8 for electrified vehicles.
Mike's fastest lap of 49.588 smashed the EV record set last year by a purpose-built electric race car by an incredible six seconds.
Notably, all three I-PACEs entered in the 2019 Jaguar Simola Hillclimb, along with another two used for guest demonstration runs, completed the entire race weekend without recharging.
The five EVs began the event with full batteries, and though each full throttle run up the 1.9km Simola hill depleted a significant amount of energy, the cars were able to recoup nearly as much charge on the way back down using regenerative braking. After the finale, the I-PACEs' respective onboard displays showed charge levels of around 40 %, meaning they each had enough range to easily complete another 150km.
Pics: jaguarlandrover.motorpress.co.za
