Had our first west coast snowfall this morning. About 2" of snow, but the roads were wet from what started as rain and so froze when the temp dropped and the snow started. Took my daughter to work as she has only driven twice in the snow and does not have winter tires. Lots of hills in our areas. Just over 700 miles on the Jag so didn't really want to get it coated in salt and snow, but she had to get to work and the buses were all getting stuck.
Put the cat into Adsr mode and let it do it's thing. My observations and thoughts:
1. Stopping on ice was about the same as previous AWD crossovers that I have had. Anti-lock braking kicks in and there was a bit of sliding. I can't say that it did better or worse than other vehicles in this situation. As well, turning into my street I had the brakes on and it definitely slid a bit as I was turning, but as soon as I took my foot of the brake it recovered nicely.
2. It really shone on the very slippery hills. I had the ASI suite display screen on to monitor power distribution between rear wheels and front wheels. When going up hills it definitely showed power going to the front wheels. I never once felt any slippage of the wheels and actually gave it a bit more gas as I got comfortable with the handling. It handled every hill with absolute ease. Passed a couple of BMW X5s and a couple of Audi Q5s that were just spinning their wheels and not going anywhere. I will be snobbish here and say that definitely felt good to drive right by with ease.
3. I did not enable low friction launch as I didn't really feel the need. There was no spinning as I pulled away from lights or stop signs. I might try it later on today. (This was on compact snow and ice as they don't use sand or gravel here - just salt. And they had not salted many of the roads).
Overall, I was more nervous that someone might hit me, but I felt that the F-Pace handled the snow and ice better than my last 3 AWD crossovers and better than any SUV that I rented. (Only exception maybe the Hummer that I drove up north).