Auckland, New Zealand: The Project presenter Kanoa Lloyd has defied expectations by breaking a speed benchmark set by legendary 1950s race driver Sybil Lupp, as part of a series of driving challenges set by Jaguar.

The Project partnered Kanoa Lloyd with three young female New Zealand racing legends - Tiffany Chittenden, Amy Hudson, and Rianna O’Meara-Hunt – who coached Kanoa Lloyd through agility, speed, and endurance challenges.

Sybil Lupp was the first female motorsport star in New Zealand, and the first female to own a mechanic workshop. The Flying Quarter Mile was one of Lupp’s best-known pursuits where she completed the challenge in 9 seconds. Kanoa managed to beat this benchmark completing the challenge in 8 seconds flat and reaching speeds of 230km per hour in the Jaguar F-Type

She also excelled in agility and endurance challenges:

• Agility and precision: After some expert training from award-winning rally co-drive Amy Hudson, Kanoa completed the Jaguar Smart Cone challenge where drivers react to an unidentified course with little warning – securing a time of 1min23sec with 83.3% accuracy.
• One hour endurance: To test her longevity and sustained power, Kanoa teamed up with karting champion Tiffany Chittenden in the Jaguar F-PACE SVR to achieve an epic average speed of 99km per hour across an hour-long lapped endurance challenge.

Racing driver and instructor Tiffany Chittenden, who was the first female to win a British Karting Championship, commented: “Motorsport is one of the most levelling sports in terms of gender, but it is still a male-dominated field. We’re thrilled to see that Kanoa Lloyd has managed to achieve such great results – particularly on the Flying Quarter Mile – and hope it is an inspiration to the rest of New Zealand. Everyone can enjoy the thrill of a high-performance car.”

Jaguar New Zealand CEO, Steve Kenchington, added: “Recent research has highlighted outdated perceptions on gender still linger in the automotive industry. Most New Zealanders think men are better drivers than women, whereas Jaguar believes all drivers are equal. Industry trailblazers such as Tiffany Chittenden, Rianna O’Meara-Hunt and Amy Hudson deserve to take some credit for defying those expectations in their field and their excellent mentorship of Kanoa as part of our partnership with The Project.”

“Jaguar doesn’t believe that breaking conventions or defying expectations should be restricted to the race-track – we want to celebrate women of all walks of life, so have created a quarterly grant so everyday trail-blazers can win $10,000 to pursue their passions.”

She Sets The Pace grants will be offered every three months, with applicants encouraged to visit the Jaguar website for more information. Jaguar is looking for women who:

• Aren’t afraid to fly in the face of common assumptions – either in their industry, career, or personal life
• Have overcome barriers or obstacles to achieve success – whether that’s overcoming resistance from others, or achieving something that hasn’t been done before
• Makes an undeniable impact – either within an industry, for our country, or in our collective culture

For more information, please visit jaguar.co.nz.

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