Friday 12th January 2018

Invictus Games Racing F-Type GT4 announced

Armed Forces veterans, the man behind Superdry, and Jag SVO create the best looking race car of 2018

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We were right! Back in March of last year the first rumours of an F-Type GT4 emerged; today we have official confirmation of a car, a team, a driver line up and racing ambition.

Invictus Games Racing will compete with the F-Type GT4 you see here in the 2018 British GT Championship, with two cars to be raced by wounded, injured and sick (WIS) veterans. The cars have been built by Jaguar's SVO division and based on the F-Type SVR. So yes, that means they're V8s...

The project has come about thanks to James Holder, co-founder of Superdry and avid motorsport enthusiast. Story goes that while he was competing in the 2016 British GT Championship, he was sufficiently inspired by watching the Invictus Games that he had a vision to combine the two. As such he's funded the process himself, working with Jim Cameron of Mission Motorsport to recruit the drivers and SVO to build the cars. Holder commented on the process: "Our drivers have overcome adversity in the face of injury, shown fierce ambitions in life and possess an incredible drive to succeed. They are perfectly suited for this sport which gives them an outlet for their ambitions."

Those drivers are Ben Norfolk, Basil Rawlinson, Paul Vice and Steve McCulley (PH raced with Steve back in the 2014 Race of Remembrance; good to see somebody has done well out of it!). They will be split between two cars, with each team of two mentored and partnered by a couple of pros: Jason Wolfe with Norfolk and Rawlinson, Matthew George with McCulley and Vice. The first race is Oulton Park on 31st March.

In addition to the competition, Invictus Games Racing will run experience events; track days opening up motorsport endeavours to other injured servicemen and women. The first of those will take place at Silverstone on 7th June.

Details of the car at the moment are fairly thin on the ground, the F-Type only described as using "motorsport specification brakes, wheels, tyres, suspension and transmission components". It will of course be rear-wheel drive (rather than using the production car's four-wheel drive) and we're told an "optimising" of the engine will take place. As discussed previously on PH, there's a plethora of GT4 cars currently competing, so the Jag won't be short of rivals: last year's British GT featured a Vantage, Ginetta G55, Lotus Evora, Maserati GT, McLaren 570S, Nissan 370Z and Porsche Cayman GT4 - 2018's entry list is unconfirmed but could include the new AMG GT4, R8 GT4 and M4 GT4.

Expectations are modest for this first season, the focus being on getting the drivers and cars as competitive as possible as quickly as possible. The team can be followed on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram; expect an awful lot more from them soon. Best of luck to all!

[Gonzo0]

So where does the money come from to fund this then??