The Dacia/Prodrive innovation that’s positively altering the Dakar problem

Dacia Sandriders will run an progressive new driver security gadget on the group’s debut on the Dakar Rally.

The producer will use a ‘seat attenuator’ to soak up impacts over the tough terrain because the automobile slams up and down on its suspension, serving to to scale back the compression of drivers’ spines, which have sustained accidents lately.

Technical companion Prodrive has developed the damper system, which can run on all three Dacia entries piloted by Nasser Al-Attiyah, Sebastien Loeb and Cristina Gutierrez, forward of its widespread inclusion within the World Rally Raid Championship [WR2C] laws from 2027 onwards.

Explaining the system, technical director Philip Dunabin stated: “There have been quite a lot of accidents in rally raids the place the automobiles land very closely and that has created quite a lot of again accidents, notably for co-drivers however primary drivers as properly.

“So Prodrive has labored on a system so as to add what is named a seat attenuator, so when the influence goes over a sure G stage, the seat will then transfer and there is sort of a shock absorber system, so the seat isn’t fully rigidly mounted.

“In regular responsibility, the seat would not transfer in any respect however, when there’s a actually huge influence, the seat can transfer downwards and it absorbs the influence.

“This can be a growth that Prodrive has labored on for this undertaking so, for the second, these are the one automobiles operating this technique.

“The appliance… it can come into the rally raid laws for any new automobiles from 2027 onwards. However it’s already in place right here.”

The Dacia effort – helped by backing from the Alpine Racing department of the Renault Groupe – will embody quite a lot of applied sciences that may be transferred to the Romanian producer’s highway automobile fashions.

“Dacia have been engaged on pigments and resin, on this case within the carbon fibre,” Dunabin instructed Motorsport.com throughout a latest go to to the Prodrive base.

“These are pigments which can be supposed to scale back infra-red absorption, supposed to maintain temperatures decrease within the automobiles. These have gotten purposes for them by way of pigment association in highway automobiles.

“They’ve additionally introduced very matte, IR reflecting paint that they are going to be utilizing sooner or later in highway automobiles.

“We use it right here in issues just like the dashtop for low reflection, low glare from the windscreen.

“There are components that aren’t within the automobile but to do with supplies for the seats and so forth, which have come straight from Dacia highway automobiles and, after all, there’s the work they’re serving to us do with sustainable fuels with the partnership with Aramco.”