Aston Martin has secured its place in the history books with a world first hydrogen-fuelled zero CO2 emission lap of the 24 km Nordschleife circuit in Germany.
The lap was completed on Saturday (27 April) with Aston Martin Chief Executive Officer Dr Ulrich Bez at the wheel of the prototype Aston Martin Hybrid Hydrogen Rapide S, and was a perfect test run ahead of a formal record-breaking attempt at the ADAC Zurich 24 Hours of Nürburgring (N24) next month.
Aston Martin engineers were using the four-hour ADAC ACAS H&R-Cup VLN series race as a shake-down and test session ahead of the gruelling 24 hour race next month in which the Hybrid Hydrogen Rapide S will line-up alongside a world-class field of some 200+ GT cars.
Dr Bez said: “I am incredibly proud of the Aston Martin team, and our partners Alset Global. We have written a little motorsport history with this qualifying lap as well as finishing the four-hour race on hydrogen and, of course, it bodes extremely well for our participation in the 24 Hours of Nürburgring in three weeks’ time.
“To have run full laps on hydrogen gas alone during the four-hour event is an exceptional ‘first’. We continue to improve the system and I now hope that we can complete the 24-hour race on May 19 with many zero CO2 emission laps.”
David King, Director of Special Projects at Aston Martin and the man leading the Hybrid Hydrogen Rapide S project, said: “This achievement should leave no one in any doubt that the system we have developed with Alset Global is a viable and exciting option for the future.
“The creation of the Hybrid Hydrogen Rapide S was, for Aston Martin, another high profile way for us to mark our centenary in 2013, and to demonstrate our engineering capabilities in the most demanding environment of a major endurance race. This is the ultimate expression of our long term strategy of using the Nürburgring 24h race to publicly demonstrate the abilities of our cars and our people.”
News Source: Aston Martin
