Dacia Sandriders will run an revolutionary new driver security machine on the workforce’s debut on the Dakar Rally.
The producer will use a ‘seat attenuator’ to soak up impacts over the tough terrain because the automotive slams up and down on its suspension, serving to to scale back the compression of drivers’ spines, which have sustained accidents lately.
Technical accomplice Prodrive has developed the damper system, which is able to run on all three Dacia entries piloted by Nasser Al-Attiyah, Sebastien Loeb and Cristina Gutierrez, forward of its widespread inclusion within the World Rally Raid Championship [WR2C] laws from 2027 onwards.
Explaining the system, technical director Philip Dunabin stated: “There have been various accidents in rally raids the place the vehicles land very closely and that has created various again accidents, significantly for co-drivers however essential drivers as effectively.
“So Prodrive has labored on a system so as to add what is known as a seat attenuator, so when the affect goes over a sure G stage, the seat will then transfer and there is sort of a shock absorber system, so the seat just isn’t utterly rigidly fastened.
“In regular responsibility, the seat does not transfer in any respect however, when there’s a actually massive affect, the seat can transfer downwards and it absorbs the affect.
“This can be a improvement that Prodrive has labored on for this challenge so, for the second, these are the one vehicles operating this technique.
“The applying… it’ll come into the rally raid laws for any new vehicles from 2027 onwards. However it’s already in place right here.”
Philip Dunabin, Technical Director, The Dacia Sandriders
Photograph by: Dacia
The Dacia effort – helped by backing from the Alpine Racing department of the Renault Groupe – will embrace various applied sciences that may be transferred to the Romanian producer’s highway automotive fashions.
“Dacia have been engaged on pigments and resin, on this case within the carbon fibre,” Dunabin instructed Motorsport.com throughout a latest go to to the Prodrive base.
“These are pigments which might be meant to scale back infra-red absorption, meant to maintain temperatures decrease within the vehicles. These have gotten purposes for them when it comes to pigment association in highway vehicles.
“They’ve additionally introduced very matte, IR reflecting paint that they are going to be utilizing sooner or later in highway vehicles.
“We use it right here in issues just like the dashtop for low reflection, low glare from the windscreen.
“There are components that aren’t within the automotive but to do with supplies for the seats and so forth, which have come straight from Dacia highway vehicles and, in fact, there may be the work they’re serving to us do with sustainable fuels with the partnership with Aramco.”
On this article
Be the primary to know and subscribe for real-time information e-mail updates on these matters
Subscribe to information alerts
