Jaguar XJR-14

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Jaguar XJR-14 was a Group C and later IMSA GTP Sports-prototype racing car introduced for the 1991 World Sportscar Championship season. It was designed to responsed to the new 3.5 liter regulations.

Designed by Ross Brawn and built by Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR). Brawn was able to apply design methodology from Formula One. In the past, TWR's Jaguars had been designed under the direction of Tony Southgate, while Brawn worked with a large design staff (12 according to John Piper). The XJR-14 was one of the first Group C cars to truly take advantage of a clean sheet of paper approach under the new FIA 3.5L regulations, meaning it was not an evolution of the XJR-12 design, but instead a true replacement. To fit with the new 3.5L regulations, Jaguar was forced to replace their large displacement V12 with a smaller V8. TWR turned to Ford-aligned Cosworth to supply the F1 derived 3.5 liter HB V8. The engines were badged as Jaguars.

In the 1991 World Sportscar Championship season, the XJR-14 had a hard fight with the new and quickly improving Peugeot squad, but was able to gain three wins on the season, securing a world championship. However, at the 1991 24 Hours of Le Mans, Jaguar initially entered two XJR-14s but later decided that the XJR-14 would not be capable of finishing the distance due to unknowns in the development of the Cosworth HB. Jaguar instead decided to enter three older XJR-12s entered in the C2 class. Although the XJR-12s did not manage to win, Jaguar's decision not to run the untested XJR-14 was vindicated by the fact that neither Peugeot's nor Sauber-Mercedes' 3.5 liter cars finished.

After 1991, Jaguar decided not to continue in Group C, believing that they had spent enough time in Group C and the instability of rules recently in the World Sportscar Championship. Jaguar decided to take the XJR-14 to the United States for the IMSA Camel GTP championship. However, without a major upgrade, the XJR-14 was unable to beat the latest challengers from Toyota and Nissan, forced to finish third in the championship with only two victories. Jaguar had to go through three chassis in the series after two, #591 and #791, were written off in seperate accidents.

Meanwhile, TWR had reached an agreement to supply more XJR-14 chassis to Mazda, minus the Cosworth V8s but installed with Mazda-badged Judd V10s, for Mazda to be able to continue in the World Sportscar Championship. Mazda would be rebadge the XJR-14s as MXR-01s. These cars also were not very capable of competing with the major manufacturer teams, scoring no wins and finishing third in the championship before the World Sportscar Championship was cancelled.

Several years later, TWR would resurrect XJR-14 chassis #691, which had competed in IMSA Camel GTP, for the development of a new prototype for Porsche. The car would be renamed the TWR WSC95, and its most significant feature was that it had it's roof removed to turn the car into an open cockpit prototype to run under the then-new LMP regulations. The WSC95 would carry a Porsche 3.0L turbocharged Flat-6. After chassis #691 was modified, TWR built a second WSC95 from scratch. In both the 1997 and 1997 24 Hours of Le Mans, the TWR-Porsches was able to take the overall win. Former XJR-14 chassis #691 would eventually end up in the Joest museum, the team which took the WSC95 to victory in both years.