Our Jaguar 'E' type racing in the Spa Six Hours

The team at P&K Thorntons drove to Belgium at the end of September to compete in the Spa Six Hours Race. In January, we bought the Jaguar ‘E’ type as a project to pull it apart and restore it. Then we went on to enter it in the hardest classic car race in the world, the Spa Six Hours.

You can now watch out YouTube video about the race below -

We had three drivers for the race, including music artist Neil Primrose, who is the drummer for the Scottish band Travis. Despite his musical background, Neil also gained his racing licence in 2007 and competes in classic car races in his free time. The second driver was Grant Williams, who is well known for racing classic Jaguars and his entertaining driving at the Goodwood Revival. Our final driver was our very own Ciprian Nistorica (Cip), our managing director at P&K Thorntons Restorations.

The Saturday before the race, Neil took a trip to our workshop to look at the car. Then the team left Nottingham in the early hours of Tuesday 24th September and spent the day travelling to Belgium, not arriving until 10 pm. The following day, the team met back up at 8 am to make plans for testing on the circuit. We had three 1-hour sessions on the circuit. However, many red flags were occurring during these sessions, so we spent some time doing maintenance on the car.

On the Thursday and Friday before the race were the qualifiers, which took place at 8 pm and 9 pm. On Thursday, Cip and Neil were driving in good conditions and Neil set the fastest lap at 3 minutes 40 seconds. However, Cip made a mistake during his drive, when he was coming out of the pits, he went too fast and missed the breaking point. This resulted in him going on the track early, resetting his time. This also resulted in Neil’s fastest lap being removed, affecting their starting position on race day.

However, on the Friday qualifiers, despite the wet conditions, Neil and Grant performed great. This was a tactical move from the drivers, as Grant was the best driver in the wet conditions. Although it rained, Grant still managed to get the fastest qualifying time for the two days at 3 minutes 38 seconds, leaving the team to start in the 47th position out of 81.

Saturday was race day, and the team were in good spirits and eager to start. The race is from 4 pm to 10 pm, with Neil beginning at the starting line. After his drive, Neil managed to get us to an impressive position of 28th. However, after a pit stop and queue at the fuelling station when Grant joined the course, we went down to 57th position. Despite the breaks getting hot for Grant, he managed to climb back up the leaderboard to 39th place. When Grant came in for a pit stop and swopped places with Cip for the last two hours of the race, they took extra time bleeding the breaks and went down to 51st position. Our team made a fantastic effort to make this time in the pits as short as possible. The team finished the race in the 41st position out of 81 and came first in our class (GTS7) as we ran close to standard certifications pre-63 GT regulations. A very well done to the team and drivers for this achievement. Our next race will be the Pall Mall Cup, hosted by Motor Racing Legends on the 19th October.