WTCC Goes Green in Sweden

In anticipation of the FIA World Touring Car Championship’s switch to the use of bio-ethanol control fuel for 2009, the upcoming round at Anderstorp in Sweden will see a one-off outing in the championship for Volvo, with the Polestar-run, ethanol-powered S60. The car will be driven by Robert Dahlgren, who has already won two rounds of the Swedish Touring Car Championship and will be the first time a car running to the FIA’s Super2000 regulations will use the fuel in the WTCC.

A development programme will take place throughout the 2008 season, the third using Yokohama Advan as control tyres, which have recently been confirmed as control tyres for 2008 and 2009. Every manufacturer, with the support of Yokohama and other sponsors and partners, will help evaluate different fuel options to determine the ideal solution to reduce the fossil-fuel component, before approval by the FIA.

Volvo has a history of innovation in touring car racing, with its use of the 850 estate model in the BTCC, the introduction of catalytic converters in the same series and support for a programme in the American SCCA touring car series with the S40 T5 model. But the decision to adopt bio-fuel for its Swedish Touring Car programme was the result of its fundamental concern for the environment. It will be running the S60 at Anderstorp to demonstrate its support for the FIA’s initiative for the future of world touring car racing.

Sweden itself already has a history of initiatives to promote green motorsport. In 2006, it held the first ‘Green’ Swedish rally, a national event open only to cars using bio-fuel. It also incorporates a bio-fuelled class in the current Swedish Rally Championship, the Ford Fiesta ST Flexi Fuel Cup, using the Group N Fiesta rally car, developed in the UK by M-Sport.

Bioethanol is a substitute for petrol for internal combustion engines. It is produced from renewable, organic crops, such as sugarbeet, corn, maize or straw and when burns, produces only water and carbon dioxide. Not only does the bioethanol constituent in fuel produce less emissions, the ethanol itself acts as an octane enhancer and helps to produce a more efficient and hence, cleaner burn within the engine, reducing emission pollutants even further.