Neuburg a. d. Donau, November 16, 2021 – Audi Sport took another step towards the Dakar Rally in the second week of November. In the second test in Morocco, Mattias Ekström/Emil Bergkvist, Stéphane Peterhansel/Edouard Boulanger and Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz shared the cockpit of the Audi RS Q e-tron. High-speed sections, gravel roads, dune hills, dry riverbeds: the innovative Audi prototype for the Dakar Rally left no stone unturned in its second test in Morocco. During an extremely short project of just twelve months, the team developed the RS Q e-tron to now cover daily off-road distances the length of the Dakar stage. However, many challenges remained until January.
“The entire team is focusing its energy on continuing the development under the toughest conditions,” says Arnau Niubó Bosch, Head of Test Engineering. “It was impressive how important findings flowed back to Neuburg from Morocco at a daily pace. As a result, our three rally cars currently under construction for the Dakar Rally will have the latest technical status. At the same time, logistical preparations are in full swing.”
In a race against time and overcome delivery bottlenecks for individual components during the pandemic, the team rolled out a centralized plan. The three-driver team drove the prototype with chassis number 103 for more than 2,500 kilometers on the toughest terrain. In various system tests, the engineers exposed the RS Q e-tron to artificially high temperatures: Stéphane Peterhansel drove a desert race car through a dry riverbed and deliberately taped the cooling air intakes to simulate the outside heat . The electric drive prototype with the energy converter survived without complaint.
This didn’t apply to the whole test: a puncture on a rocky track forced the French, like Mattias Ekström, to stop multiple times. The rock-bent suspension control arms, leaking driveshaft sleeves and other parts had to be replaced, and the bodywork required minor repairs. Peterhansel, Ekström and Carlos Sainz also put a lot of effort into the chassis setup. Things will get serious in Saudi Arabia at the end of December, when the RS Q e-tron gets a baptism of fire at the Dakar Rally.