5 Nation army

The British Rallycross Championship has kicked back into life with renewed vigour post-Covid and has electric technology in its sights

- ANDREW COTTON

The British Rallycross Championship is set to include electric cars at low cost as early as next season as the organisers look to keep up with the changing trends in motorsport. Pat Doran, who owns the Lydden Hill circuit in Kent and who is driving the changes in the sport says there are a number of options currently being considered for the series next year.

Rallycross perfectly lends itself to the introduction of electric technology. With short races and just five cars per race, balancing the performance of electric and traditional drivetrain technology is not an issue, and the racing is likely to be spectacular.

In 2017, Racecar Engineering featured the work of the Stohl Advanced Research and Development company, STARD, which started by developing an electric rally car but switched to Rallycross as the discipline increased in popularity recently. The company converted a Peugeot 207 Super 2000 to an electric powertrain with one motor per axle, each coupled with a limited slip diff erential. By having separate motors front and rear with no mechanical link between them, sequential torque control can be achieved through the use of a MoTeC M150 vehicle control unit. However, British Rallycross operates on a different level to the world stage, and the budget may not be there in order to make STARDS’ proposal a reality.