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The performance and ageing of lithium-ion cells are particularly sensitive to the battery operating temperature and in-cell temperature gradient. To mitigate adverse ageing whilst maximising performance, thermal management systems are required to maintain the cell operating temperature within its optimum range. In this paper, an aggressive duty cycle representative of track racing conditions for a performance electric vehicle (EV) is used as an input into a 1-D electrochemical-3-D thermal model which is validated against experimental data with a peak error of 10.6%. The simulated temperature response of the cell during the duty cycle is analysed under 4 minimal cooling conditions. The results indicate that natural convection with air is ineffective in limiting the peak cell temperature rise during the cycle to 20 °C and a more involved cooling method is necessary.