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| Polestar Racing | |
|---|---|
| Motor racing team | |
| Founded | 1996 (as Flash Engineering) |
| Country | Sweden |
| Team Principal(s) | Christian Dahl |
| Current series | STCC WTCC |
| Former series | N/A |
| Drivers' titles | 3 (1996, 1997, 2009) |
| Teams' titles | 3 (2002, 2003, 2009) |
Polestar Racing is a Swedish motorsport team, affiliated with Volvo, currently competing in the Swedish Touring Car Championship (STCC) and World Touring Car Championship. The team promotes environmentally friendly racing, and features ethanol engines and E85 fuel. The team’s current drivers are Robert Dahlgren and Tommy Rustad, who race a Volvo C30.
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The Swedish Touring Car Championship was created in 1996 as a copy of the successful British Touring Car Championship. Volvo, which had been competing in the BTCC since 1994, partnered with the newly founded, Halmstad-based Flash Engineering racing team, owned by Swedish driver Jan "Flash" Nilsson. Volvo provided financial support and the cars. The team initially raced a Volvo 850, and moved to a S40 in 1998. In 2000, the team moved to Karlstad. The team began racing a Volvo S60 in 2001, and raced those cars through the 2007 season. Following the introduction of Super 2000 rules in 2003, the team took over technical development of both the engines and the chassis from Volvo. In 2005, Nilsson sold the team to Christian Dahl, and it was renamed Polestar Racing. In 2010, Polestar released a one off concept prototype of a high performance Volvo C30. Though externally derived from the STCC car, the concept gets a heavily tuned version of the 2.5-litre Volvo T5 engine, which is claimed to be rated at 405hp and 510 Nm. The car uses a Haldex AWD system and a front and rear Quaife mechanical differential. Polestar claim a 0-60 time of under 5 seconds, and a top speed of 155 mph. With the C30 concept, Polestar intends to gain awareness to their brand as a Volvo affiliate, as well as to be adopted as Volvo's potential in house tuning division.[1][2] Volvo Cars has announced that Polestar will enter one C30 car for the 2011 WTCC season. It will be driven by Robert Dahlgren.[3]
Jan Nilsson, driving for Flash Engineering, won the STCC in its inaugural season (1996), as well as 1997. Volvo won the Manufacturer's Championship in 2002, with Flash Engineering winning 6 of the series' 18 rounds; and again in 2003 with Flash Engineering winning 4 of the series' 16 races. Tommy Rustad won the 2009 STCC drivers championship driving for Polestar Racing.
In 2009, the team features two bioethanol-powered Volvo C30s, driven by Robert Dahlgren and Tommy Rustad. Dahlgren won the first race of the season at Mantorp Park. The team will enter the WTCC round at Brands Hatch with Dahlgren and Rustad.
Volvo promoted the use of E85 in the STCC, and that series became the first production car championship series in which bioethanol is allowed.[4] Volvo claims that using E85 results in as much as 80% reduction of fossil-fuel based CO2 emissions. Though experts predicted that ethanol-based cars would be disadvantaged in terms of performance compared to petrol-fueled cars,[5] Polestar's S60, powered by E85, won both the first and second rounds of the 2007 Swedish Touring Car Championship season.[6][7]
The racing version of the Volvo C30, which was jointly developed by Polestar and Volvo,[8] represents a reversal of the usual process, whereby manufacturers take race-proven innovations and incorporate them into their production cars. With the C30, Volvo has taken technology from the C30 DRIVe street car, and implemented them to make a more fuel efficient race car.[9]
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