Aston Martin has prepared a special hydrogen-powered Rapide that will race at the Nürburgring 24-Hour endurance race on May 19th. Aston Martin is calling it the Hybrid Hydrogen Rapide S and the British manufacturer boasts that this will be the first time a race car has used hydrogen in mainstream motorsport. This will also be the first zero emissions racer in mainstream motorsport as well.
Based on the latest 2013 Rapide S sedan, Aston Martin’s Hybrid Hydrogen Rapide S features a good old 6.0-litre V12 combustion engine, however, the engine has been modified with two turbos and will run on pure hydrogen fuel, or a combination of the two. As the car can run on multiple fuel sources, it has been termed a ‘hybrid’.
As you can see from the diagram, the system comprises a hydrogen fuel rail, storage tanks and engine management system. Flexibility in the control of the combustion process can be either pure hydrogen, petrol or a blend of both can be selected to ensure optimum power, acceleration and CO2 reduction.
Working together with hydrogen experts, Alset Global, Aston Martin aims to show that a CO2 emission free lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife is possible. There’s no word on tech specs yet, but some forced induction should see a rise over the standard Rapide S output. Aston Martin says it will run zero emissions for its record-setting qualifying lap, while Aston tells us it will run a mixture during the race. A total range of 250 km is forecast for running hydrogen-only, equating to around ten laps of the Nordschleife.
