Prodrive develops new sustainable fuel for Dakar rally car

Prodrive will be one of the first major teams in the world to compete with a new generation of advanced sustainable fuels in an FIA championship, when it competes in the FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies later this year.

The Prodrive-run Bahrain Raid Xtreme (BRX) team will then use this fuel at the Dakar rally in January to demonstrate that such sustainable fuels can be used as a direct replacement for fossil fuels in standard production vehicles.

The company developed the sustainable fuel over the past eight months in conjunction with UK-based, Coryton Advanced Fuels.

The fuel, Prodrive ECOpower, has been 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 by capturing carbon from the atmosphere. The resulting fuel reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent compared to equivalent petrol.

Prodrive, chairman, 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 fuel has been developed at Prodrive’s powertrain facility at its headquarters at Banbury in the UK and has been run in the BRX team’s Prodrive Hunter T1+ car in the same unmodified engines which previously ran on petrol.

While developed for motorsport, the sustainable fuel can be used as a direct replacement for unleaded petrol in almost any vehicle and the company is planning to run a near identical fuel in a number of its road vehicles to further prove out the technology.