Bahrain Raid Xtreme (BRX) will be the first major motorsport team to compete with a new generation of advanced sustainable fuels in the FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies, when it takes on the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge later this year, followed by the Hail rally and then Dakar in 2022.
Prodrive has developed a new sustainable fuel over the past eight months in conjunction with Coryton Advanced Fuels. Called Prodrive EcoPower it meets the latest FIA regulations and has been specifically developed to demonstrate the environmental benefits of the latest sustainable fuel technology. The main components are generation 2 biofuel manufactured from agricultural waste and efuels created from carbon capture. As a result, the fuel offers an 80% reduction in green house gas emissions compared to equivalent petrol.
The fuel has been developed using the Hunter’s 3.5l V6 turbo engine on Prodrive’s advanced transient dyno at its headquarters in the UK and the new Prodrive Hunter T1+ has begun an extensive test programme running on the new fuel.
BRX team director, David Richards, said: “I am a great advocate of motorsport taking the lead in developing, proving and promoting new technologies that can help address climate change. The Dakar and the FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies are the perfect environment to showcase the benefits of the next generation of sustainable fuels and demonstrate that they can be used in road vehicles to reduce the use of fossil fuels, while still offering the same performance and range.”
While Prodrive EcoPower has been developed for motorsport use, such sustainable fuel can be used as a direct replacement for unleaded petrol and the company is planning to run a near identical fuel in a number of its road vehicles to further prove out the technology.
Coryton CEO, Andrew Willson, said: “Coryton has a long history in blending bespoke fuels for the motorsport industry, and to further support our customers evolving needs, we’ve recently launched Sustain, our new sustainable fuels offering. We knew that partnering with Prodrive would be an ideal way to test our capability in some of the world’s most challenging racing environments, alongside some of the finest engineering expertise in the industry.”