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Superleague Formula begins testing |
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Wednesday, 05 March 2008 |
 Apart from its motor sport
history, Donington Park is also a popular concert and festival venue, but today,
the UK circuit welcomed a new brand of beautiful music for the first time – the
V12 power of the new Superleague Formula championship.
The Elan Motorsport Technologies-built, Menard Competition Technologies-powered
prototype hit the track for the first time with Frenchman Bruce Jouanny at the
wheel.
Making its debut at Donington was a fitting start for Superleague Formula – the
championship will also kick off its inaugural season at the Derbyshire venue on
August 30/31 this year.
With championship-winning British Formula 3 team
Hitech Racing overseeing the testing and development, the new Superleague
Formula chassis completed its first track laps on this week after running
initial straight-line tests last week.
"We have been able to put some
good miles on the car and get everything up to temperature and up to speed,"
said Jouanny.
"At the end of the day I was able to do a longer run where
I could really start to put the tyres under load and push the engine harder,
which was great.
"The engine has a tremendous amount of torque – we are
down on top end power at the moment, but this is the first phase of the engine
development and we are working through mapping options – that is what we are
here for.
"The Elan chassis responds to changes really well, you can
really feel every adjustment and it has an enormous amount of downforce – the
track was pretty cold and slippery but you could really lean on the lateral
grip.
"The braking is also very impressive. The carbon brakes are very
strong and the V12 Menard powerplant offers a lot of engine braking – that will
be one of the things which the drivers in this championship will take a while to
get used to."
Jouanny, championship Technical Director Steve Farrell and
Hitech Racing are charged with developing the engine/chassis combination over
the next few months before teams accept delivery of their cars in June.
 A
total of six, three-day tests are planned with the next session scheduled for
the Monteblanco circuit in Spain.
Superleague Formula will feature the
colours of the world's leading football clubs adorned aboard the
Elan-chassis/Menard-engine combination.
"We are very early in our
development program but this week has gone pretty much to schedule – we are very
pleased," said Superleague Formula Technical Director, Steve
Farrell.
"There are a lot of detail items to sort through, but the major
functions of the car - engine running, gearchange, basic handling – that is all
going remarkably well considering the point at the development cycle that we are
at.
"All the technical partners and the guys at Hitech Racing have done
an incredible job – it has been a great effort from everyone.
"Lots of
late nights and lots of hard work, but it is a good example of the teamwork that
will play an important part in the development of the car over the next few
months."
Fresh from a major launch for Corinthians in Brazil, Superleague
Formula will next head to Turkey for the unveiling of the Galatasaray SK entry
tomorrow.
This pair join AC Milan, PSV Eindhoven, FC Porto, Olympiacos,
Borussia Dortmund, RSC Anderlecht, FC Basel, Sevilla and Flamengo on the
Superleague Formula grid.
Three further club announcements are scheduled
in the upcoming weeks, while negotiations are currently being finalised with six
additional teams to complete the 20 car entry.
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