Energy Efficient Motorsport
Activities to Date

In 2004, the EEMS programme supported two teams competing in the Le Mans Endurance Series (LMES): Taurus Sports, who ran the first diesel powered car to race at Le Mans in the modern era; and Team Nasamax, whose bio-ethanol fuelled car achieved two top ten finishes in three LMES races, and a first ever race finish for a renewable fuel at the Le Mans 24 Hours itself.
 
With a focus on engine technology regulations, EEMS collaborated with Ricardo to design and build a device capable of measuring fuel flow across a range of fuels and engines.  This was tested in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) in 2005, and the adoption of such a device would allow cars powered by any fuel to compete on an equivalent basis, with allowance made for the energy content of each fuel.
 
A Caterham 2R sports car developed by a team at Cranfield University with EEMS backing was the only road legal car entered in the Shell Eco Marathon at Rockingham Speedway in 2005.  It achieved the remarkable figure of 100mpg.  Returning in 2006, it achieved 131mpg.
 
The British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) is a UK race series for 2-litre production based touring cars.  For the 2005 season, Triple Eight Engineering, with support from EEMS, converted a 2004 championship-winning Astra to run on E85 in the championship.  E85 is a blend of 85% bio-ethanol and 15% petrol and is becoming more widely available on the UK forecourts for flexi-fuel vehicles.
 
Support continued for the Tech-Speed run Astra in 2006 which performed well and demonstrated that the fuel-blend did not compromise power, speed or reliability.  By the end of the season there were four cars on the grid running on E85: the Kartworld Racing MG driven by Jason Hughes, and two of the three Team RAC MG-ZRs had converted to bio-fuels. Although neither Kartworld nor Team RAC received any financial backing from EEMS they benefited from the advice and technical information the team was able to provide.
 
Another exciting development in 2006 was the Oaktec Honda Insight Hybrid rally car which competed in class A of the Formula 1000 Rally Championship in North West England.  The one litre car uses a V-TEC 3 cylinder engine with an electric motor/generator built into the flywheel, which boosts performance under acceleration and converts wasted braking energy into electricity which is stored in a 22kg battery pack.
 
In its inaugural championship the team finish 9th overall and won the Class A category for production cars of under 1000cc.
 
In January 2007, the Oaktec team presented to the FIA Alternative Energies Commission in Paris, discussing the car's energy savings, the control of the regenerative system, energy storage ideas and the CV transmission. 

Team Nasamax ran on bio-ethanol at Le Mans 2004

The Caterham 2R acheived 131mpg at the Shell Eco Marathon

BTCC cars running in E85

Oaktec Honda Insight rally car