Top Gear

In article , Stuart Adair writes

But being roundly thrashed by that German young lady (who took the best part of a minute off his time on her first drive of the car, compared to him spending a couple of days trying to get under ten minutes) shows how little he knows about performance driving :-)

I don't know about 12 cylinders, but diesel does seem plain wrong. Next they'll be building a car that shares a platform with a repmobile...

Matt

Simply a matter of technique. When you drive one all the time you soon learn to keep it in the rev band and make the most of all those great gobs of torque.

It shows how hard it is to learn the Nurburgring. Sabine is a legend. One of the greatest drivers in the world. Nobody else knows the ring like she does.

The 'S'-type diesel is superb. Easily the best in its class. No way that Jaguar could not have a performance diesel in Europe when everybody else does.

Incidentally, to put the performance of the car into perspective, the first lap of the Nurburgring under 9 minutes was achieved by Phil Hill in an F1 Ferrari in qualifying for the 1961 German GP.

David Betts ( snipped-for-privacy@motorsport.org.uk) The Classic Car Gallery:

In article , David Betts writes

There was an element of tongue-in-cheek there. Sabine is a great driver, and I've no doubt Clarkson could outdrive me any day on a track - but it's still fun to watch someone as self-confident as him get knocked back (as he does it to others regularly). That sounds as if I don't like him; but I do.

I'm sure it is a fine car, and it is the first I'd test drive if my mileage went back up to make my XJ8 too expensive to sensibly run; but there is still something wrong about a diesel Jag :-)

Matt