GCK Motorsport reveals electric & H2 rally cars
GCK Motorsport has announced a battery-electric rally car to debut next year during the Dakar Rally. The company is also developing a hydrogen-powered rally car that they will introduce in 2022 to be ready for action in 2023 or 2024.
The GCK e-Blast 1 just announced is supposed to deliver 250 kW, reach a top speed of 180 km/h and offer a battery capacity of 150 kWh. Both the drivetrain and the battery were apparently developed by the racing team itself and were designed especially for cross-country rallies. The team is convinced that the e-Blast 1 is “the perfect platform to drive further technological advancement in long-distance rallying”.
The vehicle itself is not a new development. The specially developed drive system was integrated into the chassis that won the Dakar Rally in 2018. At the Dakar, which was still being held in South America at the time, the Spaniard Carlos Sainz Senior won in a vehicle fielded by Peugeot.
In less than two months, the electric vehicle will be presented in Saudi Arabia as part of the 2021 Dakar, which has since been held there. The e-Blast 1 is to be further improved in some off-road races in 2021. As mentioned above, a version with fuel cell will be presented in 2022 on this basis. In 2024 at the latest, GCK Motorsport wants to compete in the Dakar with two cars.
The racing team was founded in 2017 by former free-skiing world champion Guerlain Chicherit, who participated in the Dakar with combustion engines even before ended his skiing career. The team, formerly known as GC Competition, has since changed its name to GCK Motorsport and has its own development department with GcK Technology and with GCK Energy a provider of environmentally friendly energy solutions. From this year on, the racing team wants to carry out all operations only with green energy.
According to founder Chicherit, he can hardly wait to use the e-Blast 1 for the first time. “I’ve been working on bringing together my passions for motorsport and technology with my vision for a sustainable future,” says the racing driver. “Living in the Alps is a daily reminder of the steps we need to take to develop cutting-edge technology and use our existing motorsport projects as a platform to drive a sustainable transformation. I’m super excited to have brought together forward-thinking specialists in their fields to produce ground-breaking work that will make a difference.”
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