DAKAR is a variety of enjoyable. Together with the Isle of Man TT, it's most likely essentially the most bonkers motorsport race on the planet.
To win it, you want ability, guts and a little bit of luck, racing for hours by way of sandstorms and camel herds within the huge desert.
Then you definately do it once more the following day. And the day after that. For 12 days.
However Dakar is quick turning into a test-bed for future tech as a lot as a driver’s mettle.
A bit of outfit referred to as Prodrive — you'll have heard of them — are working a 3.5-litre V6 from a Ford GT supercar of their Hunter buggy.
Sounds thirsty, doesn’t it?
Truly, it’s the greenest automobile on the beginning line because it runs on one thing referred to as era two biofuel — the principle ingredient being agricultural waste — which reduces CO2 emissions by 80 per cent in contrast with petrol.
Plus, there’s no loss in efficiency. Or vary. And it isn’t stupidly costly.
I hope Boris and his cronies are studying this as a result of my foremost level is, you'll be able to put this gas in a Ford Fiesta proper now.
Relatively than push households into pricey EVs that don’t go well with everybody, it appears short-sighted that politicians haven’t explored this eco gas earlier than telling us to purchase a automobile with a plug.
Prodrive technical director David Lapworth stated: “Take your common electrical automobile, it’s about 70,000 miles earlier than you offset the quantity of CO2 that was produced to make it.
“And even then it’s not as inexperienced as you suppose as a result of we’re nonetheless getting electrical energy from coal-fired energy stations. The quickest win is sustainable fuels — and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of automobiles on our roads may use it proper now.”
That’s to not say Lapworth is anti-EV. He’s isn’t. He simply thinks the world’s politicians “have gotten all of it a**e about face”.
He stated: “If the world was run by engineers and scientists and mathematicians and so forth, you’d say, ‘Proper, energy stations first’.
PERFECTLY GOOD SOLUTION
“As a result of 75 per cent of the CO2 comes from energy stations, and it’s the facility stations that present the power for the metal works and the factories, so we have to get these transformed first.
“Then we will push on with electrical automobiles and LED lights as a result of they received’t be producing plenty of CO2 simply to make them.
“There may be nothing flawed with the world transferring in direction of electrical automobiles. They're a wonderfully good answer. They work very nicely. But it surely’s a large journey. And they're ignoring the actual fact there are different, short-term options.”
To place all that into perspective, Prodrive reckons it'll save 28 tons of CO2 per automobile utilizing sustainable fuels on the Dakar. That’s rather a lot.
And Prodrive is working three automobiles.
The gas was co-developed with British agency Coryton Superior Fuels.
Coryton boss Andrew Willson stated: “Sustainable fuels might be utilized in all automobiles which usually run on petrol or diesel.
“There’s no want for any alterations to both autos or the infrastructure surrounding refuelling.
“Given we’re in a local weather emergency, why would we not make these simpler adjustments as we transition into totally electrical autos?
“We’re nonetheless emitting thousands and thousands of tonnes of CO2 from our present automobiles yearly.”
Over to you, Boris.
Dakar is my Everest
PRODRIVE boss David Richards is a formidable man.
He’s received trophies in WRC, F1, Le Mans, BTCC and his previous F1 staff developed into Mercedes.
However the one factor lacking from D-R’s unimaginable CV is Dakar.
That is his second crack at it, with famous person driver Sebastien Loeb piloting the attractive Hunter T1.
D-R stated: “Everybody thinks of various motor races as being very particular. Some say it’s the 24 Hours of Le Mans, it’s the Indianapolis 500, it’s the Monaco Grand Prix.
“However in the event you requested me, ‘What's the Everest of motorsport? What's the most troublesome, essentially the most difficult sort of motorsport occasion on this planet?’
"It's the Dakar. Over 4,000km throughout among the most difficult terrain anyplace on this planet. It's extraordinary.
“To construct a automobile that’s dependable and to seek out drivers and co-drivers to navigate it's equally as troublesome.
“So to win this, if we will win this one yr, then it’ll be the last word feather in our cap.”
When you’re an previous rally fan like me, you'll be able to see historical past repeating itself over at Prodrive in Banbury.
Small personal staff taking over the massive boys – and successful – after which placing all that know-how into buyer automobiles.
D-R stated: “That is simply the beginning. We’ve developed a buyer automobile, the Hunter Hyper, which you'll be able to come and see in February. It’s the last word off-road automobile.
"When you needed to cross the Sahara, that is the automobile you’d use. If you wish to go throughout Africa within the quickest time ever, that is the automobile you’d take.
“We're growing one other buyer model of this Dakar automobile, which will likely be a barely decrease specification, after which we're engaged on the following smaller automobile, the T3 automobile, that will likely be prepared in 2024.
“For me, that is the place the World Rally Championship was 30 or 40 years in the past. So I see this as very a lot again to our roots.”
It was good to see some previous faces which were at Prodrive because the Colin McRae/Subaru years.
- Prodrive are at the moment second within the Dakar with two days to go.
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