Jaguar Returns to Le Mans for its 75th Anniversary

Jaguar XKR GT2 photo

One of Jaguar’s ways of celebrating its 75 years of building and racing cars will be the returning of the brand to Le Mans, on June 12, with the XKR GT2 scheduled to take part in the 24-hour event.

"Motorsport has always been important to Jaguar. Our domination of Le Mans in the 1950s was a foundation stone in our history and our success in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s reinforced our reputation as one of the great sports car manufacturers,” said Mike O’Driscoll, Managing Director of Jaguar Cars.

“As we look to the future with our new range of high performance ‘R’-branded cars - the XKR and XFR - we aim to make the Jaguar brand synonymous with motorsports once again. It’s good to be back.”

The XKR GT2 racecar competing at Le Mans is being run by JaguarRSR, sharing many of its components with the road version of the XKR. The racer, which has been co-developed by Jaguar’s engineering and designs teams and the RSR crew, uses a lightweight aluminum body structure and an enhanced version of the 5.0 liter supercharged AJ133 V8 powerplant that offers over 500 hp.

The driver line up includes Marc Goossens, Ryan Dalziel and Paul Gentilozzi, who have tested the racecar during the American Le Mans Series earlier this year.

“It is great to return to Le Mans after 15 years, and I look forward to the chance to drive there again,” said Paul Gentilozzi. “The track is like no other in the world.  It is a challenge to every driver, but I know I have exceptionally talented team-mates, and we will do the best we can out there in the XKR GT2 with race number 81!”