Monday 8th November 2004

MG-SV for 2005 British GT Championship

Project-X makes its debut next year.

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The provisionally named Project X team is to enter the aggressively styled MG-X Power SV (right) in the 2005 British GT Championship's Cup class. This means that a proud record of racing debuts for British sportscars in the championship looks set to continue next season.

The team will be taking delivery of a rolling chassis later this week and will start construction of a Cup Class (GT3) SV. Racing manager Jay Bullock, of Cambridge Motorsport, is working very closely with the designers of the MG SV and confidence is growing in the abilities of the first motorsport incarnation of the MG SV, which is due to be completed in time for the Autosport Show at the NEC in January.

Project-X is talking with a number of prospective drivers who are able to bring sponsorship. We are aiming to confirm the long-term services of Indian racing driver Phiroze Bilimoria in the next few weeks. Phiroze can be seen driving an MG SV at Rockingham Motorspeedway on Thursday 11th November, where he is being filmed by BBC2 for the Desi DNA programme. This will be broadcast in March 2005

Details of the effort are still coming together but some of the important groundwork is already in place.

Team Principal is Paul Kneeshaw, previously with Team Jedi and now ably assisted by the team’s chief engineer Jay Bullock, a man with a background in sportscar racing which stretches back to the Toyota Group C campaigns of the 1980s.

The team is still working to finalise a driver squad but will reportedly have the services of Anthony Reid for development work. The ex-MG factory driver is however, unlikely to race for the team.

Project-X is also talking with a number of prospective drivers who are able to bring sponsorship. We are aiming to confirm the long-term services of Indian racing driver Phiroze Bilimoria in the next few weeks. Phiroze can be seen driving an MG SV at Rockingham Motorspeedway on Thursday 11th November, where he is being filmed by BBC2 for the Desi DNA programme for broadcast in March 2005.

With MG Rover currently rather cash strapped, works support is highly unlikely but the factory has donated the car to the effort, together with plans for a race-engineered version. MG Rover has clearly had racing ambitions for the SV as plans evidently exist for an N-GT version of the car.

For Cup class running however there is much work to be done, principally on suspension and ride height.

“The car is currently running a bit higher than we’d like,“ revealed Paul Kneeshaw, “but we’re working with Randle Engineering to find a solution. At the moment we’re bang on 1100 kg but with the power to weight rules in the class we’ll need to rein her in a bit.”

The standard road car develops a healthy 385 bhp from its V8 engine.

Project X is dipping a toe in the water in 2005 but is looking to push forward rapidly: the FIA GT Championship is in its sights in future years, with an N-GT version of the car. Before that though it looks like being Porsche vs Ferrari vs Marcos vs Lotus vs MG (and others) in the 2005 Cup Class.

Item courtesy of www.dailysportscar.com

[toppstuff]

Thats a great idea !

I wish the series well.

If I was going to be cynical, I might also think that this is a great way to use SV manufacturing capacity to sell some cars. After all, they are'nt exactly flying out of the door like 911's are they...