Motor racing improves the breed

Soichiro Honda, founder of Honda Motor Company, was allegedly the first to coin the phrase: “Racing improves the breed” — in this instance he was referring to motor racing and not four-legged variety!

Vast amounts of money are pumped into motorsport around the globe, making it a significant industry which for the uninitiated may seem like a playground for rich kids, adrenalin junkies and wealthy gentlemen to quench their need for speed.

Well to be honest, that is pretty much part of the motor racing since it all began in earnest early last century. But another important, if often forgotten, reason for its existence is as a test bed for new vehicle technologies which invariably, over the years, have found their way into cars since the birth of the automotive industry.

These days motor racing is also a very big business with a huge marketing reach, but ultimately the reason car manufacturers become involved is to compete, using their concepts and prototypes featuring advanced technologies in their quest for victory. And believe it or not much of what you have operating in your day-to-day car was developed, honed and fine tuned on race tracks around the world — which is precisely what Mr Honda meant when he coined the above phrase.

Earlier this month, Audi triumphed at the legendary Le Mans 24 Hours race with a car featuring hybrid technology to power assist the triumphant Audi E-tron Quattro to a 1-2 finish, the winning machine was aptly nicknamed ‘Elektra’.

Now how does this translate to road car technology? Exactly what is ‘e-tron quattro’?

Basically it revolves around an apparatus— bolted on to the car — developed by Williams (of Formula One fame) which is essentially a flywheel accumulator for energy storage and delivery, basically it harvests the energy from the braking system and other kinetic energy sources on the car, and then delivers this power to the front wheels via an electric motor.

In a nutshell this means that the rear wheels are powered conventionally by a turbo diesel engine, but the energy which the car produces while travelling is then very cleverly used and directed to the front wheels to produce four-wheel drive. Easy to imagine this technology being adapted to the majority of cars sold in the UAE, namely 4-wheel drive SUVs. They could well make use of hybrid powered front wheel drive to compliment conventionally driven rear wheels — a greener solution, think about it...

That the technology, which was in prototype form only a few years ago, survived and won the Le Mans 24 Hours this year means that it is more than ready to be adapted to road cars. A familiar development path: concept to development to race track testing to customer cars. No doubt we will see e-tron quattro badged Audi cars commercially available on the mass market in the very near future.

Audi, in particular, can justify big expenditure on their motorsport programme because what they develop and perfect on the race tracks of the world — with Le Mans being the big high profile test — will one day be part and parcel of their road cars, which fits in aptly with their slogan: Vorsprung durch Technik which translates to Advancement through Technology, an ethos that has a lot to do with their involvement and success in motorsport.

The German manufacturer is no stranger to developing new technologies on the race track for their road cars; in 2001, Audi managed to claim the first victory with the combination of turbo-charging and direct injection (TFSI), which is now standard in production vehicles today. The first Le Mans success of a diesel-powered race car in 2006 made worldwide headlines. In 2010, a vehicle with variable turbine geometry (VTG) triumphed for the first time.

Audi are not alone as all the big players in the automotive industry have a motorsport programme on their books, be it rallying, raids, track racing, sprints, endurance and even Formula One. In fact very don’t take advantage of this natural test bed for their products where the limits of prototypes can be explored and challenged in controlled conditions, by some very talented race drivers and engineers of the highest calibre. From there the successful technologies become part and parcel of the cars we drive every day on the public roads and highways wherever we live.

So next time you fire up your 4-wheel drive or your turbo diesel or apply your ABS brakes perhaps you won’t turn into a motorsport fan, but at least you will know that what you drive today was probably in some way or the other bred on the race tracks of the world — maybe even Le Mans.

The writer is communications manager at Dubai Autodrome