Formula 1 Aston Martin ambassador Jessica Hawkins admitted there was a moment during the launch of the brand new Range Rover Sport that she thought she might be dead.
The British driver’s portfolio is truly something to marvel at, having competed in the W Series Championship since its inaugural season and appeared as a stunt driver on Fast and Furious Live, and in the 25th James Bond film No Time to Die.
But nothing compares to the extremes she faced during the most demanding Range Rover challenge yet.
What did Jess Hawkins do?
Earlier this year, the adrenaline-seeking Hawkins took part in an insane driving challenge to launch Land Rover’s new Range Rover Sport.
The challenge involved driving up a 90 metre-high spillway in Karahnjukar, Iceland, which releases 750 tonnes of water per minute.
“There’s no barrier. This side there’s life, that side there’s death,” Hawkins said as she prepared to take on the gargantuan challenge. “This is crazy, to the point where we don’t even know if it’s possible.”
The setting was surrounded by 17km of ‘impossible terrain’ including dirt, rocks, and an unstoppable amount of water.
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“This power plant is the single largest one in Iceland,” explained plant worker Sigurbjörn Nökkvi Björnsson. “To drive the car in the water up the spillway, it would be a huge challenge.
“This has only one final ending if something goes wrong — the car will fall off the spillway and drop down 90m.”
In the thrilling video, Hawkins races against the clock through a small tunnel, up an impossible-looking rocky slope and then onto the spillway itself.
The 27-year-old can be heard on the car radio telling the team there is “no visibility” as she makes the heart-stopping drive to the top of the spillway against the flow of the aggressive water.
It was more than likely this moment where Hawkins believed she was dead.
Video: Jess Hawkins takes on the insane Range Rover Sport spillway challenge
What did Jess Hawkins say about the challenge?
Hawkins spoke about her exhilarating, life-threatening experience on fellow W Series driver Alice Powell’s new podcast The Driver!
“We get to the bottom of the huge cliff, drive up through the tunnels, water rushing at us. A car should not be able to make it through there,” Hawkins explained.
She then described how steep the rocks were and Powell asked whether there was a chance she could have died during the drive.
“I kid you not, there was a split second — probably longer than a split second — where I genuinely thought that I was dead,” Hawkins told her Bristol Street Motors teammate. “I forgot there were safety precautions but I genuinely thought I was dead. I thought that was it.”
W Series driver Jess Hawkins drinks champagne in Miami
She did not specify in which moment she had these thoughts, but simply told viewers to watch the video and they would see for themselves.
Hawkins also stressed none of the filming was dramatised and she had no assistance whatsoever when tackling the course.
With several months away from the W Series track ahead, will the British daredevil take on even more adrenaline-filled challenges?
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Keyword: British racing driver ‘thought they were dead’ during filming of insane Range Rover launch