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Last Auto account – Auto Express is traveling racing! Chief alley tester Owen Mildenhall to chase Lexus ISF in this year’s Nurburgring 24 hour race

Auto Express is traveling racing! Chief alley tester Owen Mildenhall has abutting the Lexus aggregation to chase a specially-built ISF in this year’s Nurburgring 24 hour race. And to add a little added pressure, chief alley Owen will allotment the car with ex-Indy 500 brilliant Hideshi Matsuda and Gran Turismo bold architect Kazunori Yamauchi.

The chase begins on Saturday May 15th. And Auto Express’s car will be one of over 150 entrants to yield to the allegorical German circuit. We’ll aswell be there in force to accompany you all the on and off clue activity via the webiste and our Twitter page – you can chase us on Twitter by beat here.

In alertness for the race, Owen’s aggregation has entered the car in a amount of VLN events. The VLN is an ability alternation which runs alone on the Nordschleife, authoritative it the absolute abode to fine-tune the ISF.

What’s more, it helps the drivers to get to grips with the traffic, the infamously capricious acclimate and the top speeds – at present, the Lexus will hit 174mph at the fastest point on the track.

The ISF has been congenital by Lexus’ technicians to the SP8 chic rules, which agency that it has a accepted 417bhp 5.0-litre V8 engine and eight-speed auto gearbox.

However, the car does accept a amount of modifications to accomplish it added aggressive on the clue – it has stiffer suspension, a cycle cage and adhesive Yokohama tyres, while the aerodynamics are assisted by a foreground splitter, collapsed underfloor and new rear wing.

The aboriginal VLN chase was a alloyed activity – the car had an affair with a caster acceleration sensor that was ambagious the ECU, and the collapsed underbody acquired the rear cogwheel to overheat.

But the accident accepted a abundant acquirements experience, and there are two added VLN contest to go afore the 24-hour event. For the car’s next outing, new anchor pads will be approved to action overheating, and new abeyance settings will be activated to advice advance absorption and stability.