Apex Motorsport celebrated a rostrum finish in its maiden
FIA GT3 European Championship outing with its new Jaguar XKR GT3 in the Dubai season finale, and took a good deal of information away that the team hopes will help it convert that podium into victory next time around.
The Buckingham-based outfit took two cars over to the UAE for the event, which brought a best finish of 19th place for Neil Cunningham and Karim Al-Azhari in race two. Indeed, from four starts the squad impressively achieved three finishes, with only am accident to the same car in race one preventing a clean sweep of chequered flags.
It was a tough weekend for us, remarked Apex Motorsport team principal Richard Lloyd, nevertheless buoyed by the strong debut showing. The high ambient temperatures hurt our engine performance perhaps more than others, but it's given us a valuable chance to evaluate the competition first-hand.
I'm encouraged by our continued reliability the non-finish by the #46 car in the first race was due to accident damage and it was good to see Jaguar drivers on the podium, as winners of the Jaguar Cup class. Overall we've made good progress during these past two months, and we'll now be concentrating on getting more performance from the car during the coming months.
As a key supporter of the Jaguar XKR programme from the outset, Stuart Scott was delighted to have been able to race alongside Chris Ryan in Dubai, particularly as his key sponsor, Silverjet, was celebrating the launch of a new service to the desert kingdom.
It was a great weekend, Scott enthused after twice finishing 23rd overall in the #47 machine, with the bonus of getting onto the podium after race one. I'm now looking forward to a few days rest out here!
Cunningham, for his part, was taking part in his second race with the team, and benefited from new co-driver Al-Azhari's valuable local knowledge. The Kiwi professed himself encouraged by progress made over the course of the meeting.
