{"id":2070,"date":"2021-10-12T09:55:41","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T07:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.audimiddleeast.com\/en\/?p=2070"},"modified":"2022-11-10T14:14:43","modified_gmt":"2022-11-10T12:14:43","slug":"100-days-dakar-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.audimiddleeast.com\/en\/100-days-dakar-rally\/","title":{"rendered":"Less than 100 days to go until the Dakar Rally"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column]\r\n<div class=\"sh-text-with-frame\" id=\"text-with-frame-dNow67jDFx\">\r\n\t<div class=\"sh-text-with-frame-container\">\r\n\t\t\r\n<h2><strong>Less than 100 days to go until the Dakar Rally: A race against time for Audi Sport<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n            <style type=\"text\/css\">\r\n                #text-with-frame-dNow67jDFx .sh-text-with-frame-container {border-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.07);}#text-with-frame-dNow67jDFx .sh-text-with-frame-container p {}            <\/style>\r\n        [vc_column_text el_class=\"article-copy\"]\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Assembly of the rally cars has begun<\/strong><\/li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Audi RS Q e-tron with complex powertrain concept<\/strong><\/li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Four kilometres of cables, two central control units and six cooling systems<\/strong><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=\"2075\" img_size=\"full\" alignment=\"center\"][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text el_class=\"article-copy\"]<strong>UAE, October 12<sup>th<\/sup> 2021: <\/strong>In less than 100 days, the 44th edition of the famous Dakar Rally will kick off. For Audi Sport, this marks the beginning of a real race against time.\r\n\r\nAudi is tackling one of the greatest challenges in international motorsport, quite deliberately using a unique concept. The Audi RS Q e-tron has an electric powertrain with two motor-generator units (MGUs) from Formula E. While the vehicle is in motion, the high-voltage battery is charged by an energy converter consisting of the efficient TFSI engine from the DTM and another MGU.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe prototype of the Audi RS Q e-tron was created in around twelve months,\u201d says Julius Seebach, Managing Director of Audi Sport GmbH and responsible for motorsport at Audi. The rollout on June 30th, 2021 in Neuburg an der Donau and the start on January 1, 2022 in Ha\u2019il (Saudi Arabia) are separated by merely six months. \u201cThat\u2019s a very short time to prepare for such a complex project. I cannot emphasise this often enough: The Audi RS Q-etron is the most sophisticated vehicle in terms of technology that Audi Sport has ever deployed in racing.\u201d\r\n\r\nAndreas Roos, Project Leader for all factory-backed motorsport activities, can only confirm that: \u201cThe Dakar is extremely challenging \u2013 even for a conventionally powered vehicle. With our powertrain concept, the challenge is distinctly greater. The chassis and suspension do not entail major differences, but we have a lot more components in the car that have to be not only high performing lightweight and functioning reliably under the extreme conditions of the Dakar. They also have to be attuned to each other perfectly and work together smoothly.\u201d\r\n\r\nA conventionally powered Dakar vehicle features two major components: the internal combustion engine and the transmission. \u201cIn our Audi RS Q e-tron, we have an electric motor at the front axle, an electric motor at the rear axle, the high-voltage battery and the energy converter, consisting of another MGU and the TFSI engine from the DTM,\u201d says Roos. \u201cAnd each of these components, for instance, requires a dedicated cooling system. That means we have not only one cooling system in the car but as many as six, including the intercooler and air conditioning system for the driver and co-driver.\u201d\r\n\r\nPackaging is another major issue with such a complex vehicle. \u201cWe had to make use of every centimetre to accommodate all the components in the car,\u201d says Roos. That comes at the cost of ease of service. \u201cFor instance, changing the front-axle differential still takes a lot of time at the moment. That must be achievable faster at the Dakar and is one of the issues we\u2019re currently working on under massive time pressure.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=\"2076\" img_size=\"full\" alignment=\"center\"][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text el_class=\"article-copy\"]Parallel to the test, Audi Sport in Neuburg an der Donau already started building the first car intended for competition with chassis number 104. \u201cThe test car is a prototype wherein not everything was a perfect fit yet,\u201d says Benedikt Brunninger, Audi Sport Project Manager for the Dakar Rally. \u201cIn the case of the actual competition cars, we\u2019re aiming for absolute perfection in terms of accurate fit.\u201d\r\n\r\nObviously, the special conditions at the Dakar Rally play a role as well: sand, water, cold and major elevation differences. \u201cWe have a really large amount of sensitive electronics and many electrical components in the car that we need to protect against sand and water as effectively as possible,\u201d says Roos. \u201cWe\u2019ve learnt a lot in the tests we\u2019ve run so far and are now trying to feed all of our findings into the rally cars in time for the Dakar Rally.\u201d\r\n\r\nA large part of the work is in the areas of software, electrical and electronic systems. \u201cWe\u2019ve got two central control units and around four kilometres of cables in the vehicle \u2013 not even counting the high-voltage cables,\u201d says Roos. \u201cThe interaction of all powertrain components and of the high-voltage battery as well is extremely complicated. If anything doesn\u2019t fit there the car will stop.\u201d\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, assembly of the race cars for the Dakar Rally has begun at Audi Sport in Neuburg an der Donau. Because the Audi RS Q e-tron travels also on public roads in cross-country competitions, each vehicle receives road approval including the related individual acceptance. Concurrently, the development schedule up until December includes a large number of additional stations \u2013 such as the Audi climate chamber for simulating the temperatures and elevation differences prevailing at the Dakar and a pendulum test on a speciality test rig.\r\n\r\nThere are less than 100 days remaining before the Dakar Rally kicks off. Less than 100 days, that will become extremely intense for everyone in the Dakar team to achieve the next major stage goal: to put three superbly prepared cars on the starting ramp in Ha\u2019il.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>Motorsport Communications\r\n<\/strong>Stefan Moser\r\nHead of Motorsport Communications\r\nTel.: +49 152 57713467\r\nE-mail: <a href=\"mailto:stefan1.moser@audi.de\">stefan1.moser@audi.de<\/a>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>Motorsport Communications\r\n<\/strong>Virginia Brusch\r\nSpokeswoman Dakar Rally\r\nTel.: +49 841 89-41753\r\nE-mail: <a href=\"mailto:virginia.brusch@audi.de\">virginia.brusch@audi.de<\/a>[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=\"2077\" img_size=\"full\" alignment=\"center\"][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Assembly of the rally cars has begun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[164,153,44],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.audimiddleeast.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.audimiddleeast.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.audimiddleeast.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.audimiddleeast.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.audimiddleeast.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2070"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/news.audimiddleeast.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2327,"href":"https:\/\/news.audimiddleeast.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070\/revisions\/2327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.audimiddleeast.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.audimiddleeast.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.audimiddleeast.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}