Austrian FIA World Rallycross Championship team STARD and Ford Performance have revealed the first all-electric customer rallycross car – the Fiesta ER2.
The new Fiesta ERX2 are being built by STARD with help of Ford and are delievered to customers race-ready and have been designed to compete in the all-new all-electric World RX support series Projekt E, which will be debuting at Höljes in late-August this year.
“We are happy to support STARD with this project and it will be exciting to see how this develops going forward. We wish the project all the very best for the forthcoming season and we will be watching with interest as STARD built Fiestas go racing.” Mark Rushbrook, Global Director at Ford Performance Motorsports, said on the new car.
The car made a successful start on its debut last weekend as STARD’s team principal Manfred Stohl became the first driver to ever win a rallycross event in a fully electric car.
“At STARD we have been actively working on electric powertrain systems for motorsport since 2008. It feels great to finally start to reveal these revolutionary products to the public. At this stage I would also like to thank Ford for the forward-thinking support towards this project, which was an important element in this ground-breaking undertaking.” Stohl added.
“The opportunity to race a Ford branded electric racecar in the Projekt E series will certainly be of high value to many customers. I had the pleasure of driving one of our test cars on its competition debut last weekend at Kakucs and it was fantastic to make history and take the powertrain concepts first victory.”
EV powered supercars have also been designed to try and reduce the operation costs of the class and the new car is equipped with STARD’s in-house developed REVelution powertrain, that features three electric motors that combine together to produce 613bhp, 1002nM of torque and help the car to a top speed of 240km/h.
The drivetrain is also available to owners of internal combustion engine machines who want to convert them to electric power and they’ll also be able to compete in Projekt E.
“I believe this is the start of a new era for customer and private motorsport. The primary target of the STARD Ford Fiesta is of course to be raced in Projekt E, the leading electric support category to the FIA World Rallycross Championship, but also in other environments.” Michael Sakowicz, CEO and founder of STARD, added on where the powertrain could be used.
“The car has undergone all FIA safety checks, particularly for the HV systems which makes this the first motorsport EV powertrain equipped race car package to complete FIA checks since Formula E. Therefore the possibilities to race with the car are pretty much unlimited. This includes national rallycross, hillclimbs, city races and more. We can´t wait to see the cars competing on track from August in Projekt E.”
The Projekt E series is set to make its debut this season, with the idea eventually that electric power will become the main power source in the FIA World Rallycross series over the next few years.