Jaguar Land Rover

Ace of Pace

Racing driver Célia Martin does everything she can to exceed limits. For the Jaguar Owners Club, Storyboard visited her at her workplace: the Nürburgring.

Moving to Germany in 2017 to realise her motorsport dreams, Célia Martin has made the country's most famous and demanding race track – the legendary Nürburgring Nordschleife – her workplace. For our client Jaguar Land Rover, journalist Geoff Poulton and photographer Gene Glover visited her at Jaguar Land Rover's Nürburgring test centre, and took an adrenaline-filled passenger ride through the 'green hell'.

"The course is incredibly challenging, but it also gives you a feeling of total freedom."

  • Blue and orange Jaguar in a car garage photographed from above
  • Racing driver Célia Martin stands next to an orange and blue Jaguar racing car in a garage
  • Close-up of the cockpit of a Jaguar racing car and Célia Martin's hands on the steering wheel
  • Lateral portrait of Celia Martin at the wheel
  • Orange-blue Jaguar on the Nürburgring
  • Orange-blue Jaguar in a bend at the Nürburgring

Full speed through the 'green hell'

After getting to know Célia Martin, she quickly gets to the point: Her motorsport career was anything but conventional. "I'm young, inexperienced and don't have a classic racing background," she says, "but I've learned to find my own way - and that makes me special." Jaguar got that. At the Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY, the world's first racing series for electric production vehicles, the 27-year-old started her first full season as a racing driver for the Viessman Team Germany in 2019. And with impressive results: she earned second places in both Paris and Berlin, only narrowly missing her first victory in the latter.

Célia Martin gets into the Jaguar RACE Taxi at the Nürburgring
Always looking for the next thrill: Célia gets into her Jaguar RACE Taxi at the Nürburgring.

But even when she is not racing, high speed is an integral part of Célia Martin's day job. As a test driver in Jaguar Land Rover's Nürburgring Test Centre, the Frenchwoman sits at the wheel of the Jaguar Race Taxi and chauffeurs her guests around the famous race track at 150 km/h. A hot lap presents the ideal setting to chat with Martin about life on the track, and to photograph her high-speed workday at the Nürburgring.

The result of the shoot: a dynamic photo gallery and an exciting portrait of an exceptional young woman who is making her mark in the male-dominated motorsport scene, for customer magazine The Jaguar and the Jaguar Owners Club website.

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