Throwback Thursday: ID R Annihilates Goodwood Festival Of Speed
If you guessed a VW you would be right. Let’s look at three letters giving a new meaning to speed:
Electric Identification
Powering the ID. R is no monster twin turbo V8 or E85 spewing V12. Instead VW opted for an ultra modern approach combining the torque of electric motors with the aerodynamics of a Le Mans LMP1 car. More on that later, for now we know the ID. R produces 670bhp and 480lb-ft that are available instantaneously which makes it one serious hill climb weapon.
image courtesy of flickr.com
Sign of the Times
Not only did this machine set the record for an electric car, it also set the fastest time of the entire event this year. While electric race cars can’t perform for long durations of time this is a serious sign that electricity is going to be a force to be reckoned with on the track sooner than we can imagine.
image courtesy of jalopnik.com
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Proven Aerodynamics
Plywood instruction manuals and forum advice won’t be found anywhere on the wind tunnel tested racer that Romain Dumas piloted to a time of 43.05 seconds. There are swoops, dives and curves around the body that all indicate a high level of wind tunnel time, CFD experience and decades of proven know how. Even in the modern era you can’t escape the benefit of knowing how to curve good ‘ol fashion air.
image courtesy of flickr.com
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VW’s Vision
Many of the traditional methods of building a race car go out the window which contributes to the speed of this car: it doesn’t suffer from air deprivation at altitude because it doesn’t breathe air, weight can be placed very low compared to an engine and the driver makes use of instantaneous torque coming out of corners.
image courtesy of youtube.com
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Until next time
Francois-Xavier Demaison, VW Motorsport's technical boss, surmised that the car could go much faster if they wanted it to. However, due to the limited timeframe that the team had to work with, the car was tuned to the best of their ability. "This car has been designed for Pikes Peak, for a 20-kilometer race," he told Autosport. " "This is not designed for this 1.8-kilometer distance, but I think we have some ideas to make it faster for the future."
>>Join the conversation about the VW ID R right here in the 6SpeedOnline Forum!
