Polestar Racing

For the American Formula Atlantic racing team, see Polestar Racing Group.
For the Australian V8 Supercar racing team, see Garry Rogers Motorsport.
Sweden Polestar Racing
Founded 1996 (as Flash Engineering)
Team principal(s) Christian Dahl
Current series Scandinavian Touring Car Championship
Former series World Touring Car Championship
TTA – Racing Elite League
Teams'
Championships		 7 (2002, 2003, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014)
Drivers'
Championships		 6 (1996, 1997, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014)

Polestar Racing is the official Volvo factory racing team, based in Gothenburg, Sweden, currently competing in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship (STCC). The team’s current drivers are Fredrik Ekblom, Thed Björk, Linus Ohlsson and Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland, who race Volvo S60s in the Scandinavian championship.

Polestar consists of two divisions, with Polestar Racing handling the racing and Polestar Performance being the official performance partner of Volvo, offering engine optimisations for Volvo's road cars as well as producing performance models[1] and prototypes.[2]

Polestar Performance

Polestar Performance produces limited edition Volvo performance models, such as the Volvo S60 Polestar,[1] and engine optimisations for turbocharged Volvo road cars as the official performance partner of Volvo with retained warranty and unchanged fuel consumption and emissions. The engine optimisation increases the power and torque output, varying depending on engine model.

Polestar Performance produces prototype cars as well, with the first and most famous being the C30 Polestar Performance Concept Prototype (2010) with over 450 bhp and 510 Nm.[3]

The Volvo S60 Polestar Concept is the heir to the C30 Polestar, featuring 508 BHP from a modified T6 engine, launched in June 2012.[4] The car sprints from 0–100 km/h in 3.9 seconds with a top speed of over 300 km/h.[5] American car magazine Motor Trend tested the car at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca where it broke the lap record for four-door cars, matching the lap time of an Audi R8.[6]

Since 2014, Polestar Performance has been involved in the development of a V8 powered Volvo S60 that is raced by Garry Rogers Motorsport in the Australian V8 Supercars series.[7] Robert Dahlgren was seconded to Australia in 2014 as part of this programme.[8]

Racing history

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 2003, 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. Polestar entered one Volvo C30, developed from scratch by Polestar in 2008, for the 2011 WTCC season, driven by Robert Dahlgren.[9] 2012 saw Polestar racing in the new Swedish break-away touring car championship TTA[10] with a Volvo S60 TTA. 2013 saw TTA and STCC merging back again as one championship,[11] with Polestar entering five cars for the 2013 season.[12]

Achievements

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. 2010 saw Polestar winning the teams' championship of STCC. 2012 marked a new record for Polestar by claiming all three titles of the 2012 TTA – Racing Elite League season, including teams', manufacturers' and drivers' title with Fredrik Ekblom.[13] 2013 and 2014 meant continued success as Thed Björk claimed two straight drivers' titles and the team two consecutive teams' titles.[14] [15]

Current season

[The team claimed the drivers' and teams' titles of the 2014 Scandinavian Touring Car Championship with Thed Björk becoming drivers' champion, Fredrik Ekblom finishing third overall and Prince Carl Philip Bernadotte 12th.[16]

Environmentally friendly racing

Robert Dahlgren racing a Volvo C30 at Brands Hatch

Volvo promoted the use of E85 in the STCC, and that series became the first production car championship series in which bioethanol is allowed, and WTCC.[17] 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,[18] Polestar's S60, powered by E85, won both the first and second rounds of the 2007 Swedish Touring Car Championship season.[19][20]

The racing version of the Volvo C30, which was jointly developed by Polestar and Volvo,[21] 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.[22]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.polestar.com/en-int/performance/polestar-cars/volvo-s60-polestar-limited-edition/
  2. ↑ http://www.polestar.se/en-int/performance/about-performance/
  3. ↑ http://www.evo.co.uk/carreviews/evocarreviews/252307/volvo_c30_polestar_review.html
  4. ↑ http://ttagroup.se/2012/06/07/polestar-presents-volvo-s60-polestar-at-the-tta-gothenburg-city-race/
  5. ↑ http://www.polestar.se/en-int/performance/about-performance/volvo-s60-polestar/
  6. ↑ http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/sedans/1303_volvo_s60_polestar_track_test/
  7. ↑ "Volvo launches V8 Supercar campaign in Brisbane". Speedcafe. 17 June 2013.
  8. ↑ "Robert Dahlgren confirmed for Volvo V8 seat". Speedcafe. 16 January 2014.
  9. ↑ http://www.fiawtcc.com/Read_News.asp?idNews=693
  10. ↑ http://www.touringcartimes.com/article.php?id=6630
  11. ↑ http://ttagroup.se/2012/10/22/the-swedish-racing-war-is-over-stcc-and-tta-merges/
  12. ↑ http://www.touringcartimes.com/article.php?id=8444
  13. ↑ http://ttagroup.se/2012/09/29/pole-for-thed-bjork-fredrik-ekblom-is-the-champion/
  14. ↑ http://www.touringcartimes.com/2013/09/07/richard-goransson-wins-at-tierp-while-thed-bjork-takes-stcc-title/
  15. ↑ http://teknikensvarld.se/thed-bjork-stcc-mastare-2014-160111/
  16. ↑ http://www.stccdatabas.se/result.php
  17. ↑ Volvo...victory for the environment
  18. ↑ Bio-fuel Volvo enters Anderstorp
  19. ↑ A victory for a greener motor sport STCC silver medal for Volvo
  20. ↑ A Victory for Volvo and a Victory for the Environment
  21. ↑ volvo cars develops a new racing car for stcc
  22. ↑ Här är Volvos nya "gröna" STCC-bil

External links