If you’ve got an amazing brand-new innovation you want to see utilized throughout the different world of sportscar racing, there are 2 organisations you require to be dealing with.
The very first of these, obviously, is the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), the body behind the Le Mans 24 Hours and the World Endurance Championship (WEC). And the other is the SRO Motorsports Group, the organisation at the centre of the prospering worldwide GT scene.
Dealing with the ACO is precisely what TotalEnergies did when it released its 100% sustainable sportscar fuel, Excellium Racing 100. At the start of 2022, the fuel stemmed from grape residues ended up being control propellant for the WEC– and its day-and-night French masterpiece, obviously.
After 2 years invested developing the item throughout 2 editions of the Le Mans 24 hours, and just recently extending the WEC supply offer up until 2028, the French energy giant was then prepared to turn to that 2nd huge gamer on the sportscar scene.
Eager to change its champions to sustainables as quickly as possible, SRO obviously liked what it saw in Excellium Racing 100. It wasn’t long before an offer was struck for the fuel to be utilized in the GT World Challenge (Europe and Asia) from 2024.
This indicates that the 75th edition of the 24 Hours of Spa will work on fuel that is 100% sustainable over its ‘well to wheel’ lifecycle.
“This is a really crucial platform for us,” states TotalEnergies Motorsport Technical Manager Thomas Fritsch. “The Spa 24 Hours is the most significant GT race on the planet, with a big reach on that phase.
“We wish to assist the GT3 world relocation towards more sustainability, so this was practically a compulsory turning point in our story.”
Considered that 2024 sees the WEC and Le Mans changing their GT classifications to the exact same GT3 guideline set governing the GT World Challenge champions, his words make best sense. Having currently fine-tuned the procedure of turning French white wine residue biomass into powerful fuel for GT3 engines, it wasn’t a huge technical action to get the grid operating on Excellium Racing 100 in time for the GT World Challenge Europe Prologue test at Paul Ricard in March.
“The ACO made things simple for us by changing everyone to GT3!” describes Fritsch. “So all the producers establishing engines for WEC had actually currently made the maps throughout screening, so they simply needed to provide to the GT World Challenge guys.”
The larger difficulty for a control fuel provider, smiles Fritsch, is guaranteeing fairness.
“It’s a little an amusing one: you can’t check on any automobiles taking part in an offered champion since you do not wish to provide a benefit to any one group when there is a switch to a brand-new fuel. We need to make sure the very best possible equality in between rivals.
“That’s why we have our own test benches and dynos to check the item.