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

Dacia Sandriders will run an revolutionary new driver security machine 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 automotive slams up and down on its suspension, serving to to scale back the compression of drivers’ spines, which have sustained accidents lately.

Technical associate Prodrive has developed the damper system, which is able to 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] rules from 2027 onwards.

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

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

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

“This can be a improvement that Prodrive has labored on for this mission so, for the second, these are the one automobiles working this technique.

“The appliance… it is going to come into the rally raid rules 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 embrace a lot of applied sciences that may be transferred to the Romanian producer’s street automotive fashions.

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

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

“They’ve additionally introduced very matte, IR reflecting paint that they are going to be utilizing sooner or later in street 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 automotive but to do with supplies for the seats and so forth, which have come straight from Dacia street automobiles and, after all, there may be the work they’re serving to us do with sustainable fuels with the partnership with Aramco.”