This week-end, Dyson Racing will run a Lola-Mazda in American Le Mans Series with the new Flybrid KERS system, from Flybrid Automotive. This system will be used in Petit Le Mans too. Tobias Knichel, from Flybrid Automotive, gave us more details about this hybrid system.

Laurent Mercier : Other cars with Flybrid KERS?

Tobias Knichel (from Flybrid Automotive) : “Our deal with Dyson Racing is not exclusive. I expect that we will see some more cars with a Flybrid KERS in racing in the near future.  As you might know our very first motorsport customer was the Honda F1 team back in 2008. Our first customer in endurance racing was Hope Racing with the Oreca 01. This car still exists and as you know we have been testing with SwissHytech a few times since Le Mans 2011 and most recently back in July this year. Benoit Morand is constantly trying to secure the funding to go racing with this car. If there was an award for commitment and resilience in Motorsport, I think Benoit would deserve it!”

“KERS certainly is a very important topic for endurance racing, especially with the new FIA regulations for 2014. It is possible to create very capable hybrid systems for 2014 and we certainly are convinced that mechanical, flywheel based systems are best placed to make use of these new regulations due to the inherently high power density of mechanical hybrids.”

“We are also speaking with customers in other racing series. The FIA Formula E is interesting, as a mechanical flywheel based hybrid would be able to load level the charging and discharging for the main electric, battery based drive system and therefore extend the battery life and increase performance. We are talking with a few teams in this championship.”

“Furthermore, we are always talking to one-make series. I think the implementation of hybrids in one make series is still a bit further in the future, but we are certainly interested. We are always interested to expand in other racing series. So if you have any suggestions, I would be interested to hear them.”

Braking zones in ALMS like WEC ?

“In ALMS there won’t be any braking zones. Basically we are working to the 2011 ILMC regulations here. This means we can store energy whenever the car is slowing down and we can release it when the driver is accelerating again.
In my view this is how it should be and it makes the control of the hybrid system, both in terms of our software as well as from the driver perspective, much easier.”

New Sportscar Racing series in North America ?

“Flybrid is definitely interested in the new sportscar racing series in North America. We have a very good partnership with Dyson Racing and I hope that this will provide us with the political power to convince the IMSA and NASCAR to include Hybrids in the new regulations for 2014.”

Laurent Mercier