Madrid
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Drive a racing car it is an exercise in finesse. It may not seem like it on first impression, when the engine roars with thunderous decibels, when the gears engage with a loud click, or when the brakes attack hard to try to control the bulk moving easily through the mud.
Drive a racing car it’s like taming a wild horse. There is no room for insecurities, hesitating for a second can mean that the drive wheels, the rear wheels, lose grip and you spin in a muddy curve.
Drive a racing car it’s a balance joblooking for the point where a skid is controlled enough not to lose speed on the circuit, a simple oval of soaked dirt in the middle of Castilla y León.
They are precision adjustments, with buttons that adjust the pressure of the wheels based on the resistance of the terrain. It is to have an on-board computer capable of measuring the temperature of the oil. And when it comes to a Dakar car, it’s all about getting soaked in mud, lots of mud.
It’s hard. Getting into the vehicle is difficult, cramped, stiff. The harness prevents you from moving an inch, and you need to because the upper corner of the windshield is impassable and prevents you from seeing the direction of the next curve. It is an exercise of faith. It is orienting in the desert. It is praying that you have taken the right direction with the right power at the right time.
it’s physical. It’s hitting your knees with the chassis. It is fighting against a flyer who wants to be free. It is to withstand bumps and blows to the head. It’s realizing that you don’t really know what you’re doing in a controlled environment.
It is finding redoubled respect for those who really do it professionally.trying to cut tenths of a second off the scoreboard, like the Astara team, which competed with these models in the 2022 Dakar in Saudi Arabia.
carbon neutral
It wasn’t just about running it, it was about breaking records. Astara returned to Spain as the only team in the rally with a neutral carbon footprint. Part of this is due to the fact that its models were powered by e-fuel, a biofuel compound with a minimum of 70% of sustainable origin.
According to the organizers, they managed to make adjustments to the formula that allowed them to save 7.73 tons of CO2, gaining benefits, such as more torque, at the cost of sacrificing 10% power and 6% consumption.
To counteract the rest of the CO2 involved in participating in the Dakar, beyond the Concept 01s that ran, the vehicle importer invested in reforestation projects in the Amazon —specifically, the Madre de Dios region in Peru—, as well as in Madrid.
Looking ahead, other Dakar teams, which have set themselves the goal of being more sustainable for the future, have turned to them to see how they can implement similar powertrain solutions in their own vehicles.
See them
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