Volkswagen ID.R sets new record at Goodwood
08 July 2019
The Volkswagen ID.R has set a new all-time record at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Romain Dumas completed the 1.86-kilometer track in the south of England in just 39.90 seconds. In doing so, the 500-kW (680-PS) electric race car broke the previous record, which had stood for 20 years, by 1.7 seconds.
Dumas also took victory in the Sunday Shootout. The previous record at the famous hillclimb was set in 1999 by Nick Heidfeld in a 574-KW (780-PS) McLaren-Mercedes MP4/13 with a combustion engine.
In setting the new all-time record at the ‘Goodwood Festival of Speed’, the ID.R has once again shown that Volkswagen’s electric powertrain can outperform even the most powerful conventional powertrains. Romain Dumas exploited the full potential of the ID.R on this short but tricky track. After the victory on Pikes Peak and the e-record on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife, he has now achieved another milestone for electromobility. It was a strong performance from our whole team, which only had a very short time, in which to get a lightweight variant of the ID.R up and running for the ‘Festival of Speed’.
—Volkswagen Motorsport Director Sven Smeets
Volkswagen Motorsport had systematically modified the ID.R for its outing at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Among other things, the latest evolution of the electric race car was lighter than when it set the records on Pikes Peak and at the Nürburgring.
We used a smaller battery than at the Nürburgring and optimized the power output. As such, the new sprint version of the ID.R weighs less than 1,000 kilograms, with the driver on board.
—François-Xavier Demaison, Technical Director at Volkswagen Motorsport
The ID.R also completed its record-breaking run without the Drag Reduction System (DRS) that was designed for the high-speed sections of the Nürburgring, as the characteristic of the track in Goodwood made this superfluous.
Technology partner Bridgestone, which was also involved in the record-breaking run in Goodwood in 1999, also supplied special tires for the 1.86-kilometer sprint—a particularly soft variant of the Bridgestone Potenza slick.
it looks good, but, as they say, they have fitted batteries sized to the short, fast run and so have made the cars lighter, but very short ranged.
And hence have no relevance to real life driving.
It would be better to agree a minimum KwH level for electric race and record cars, say 40 KwH (not so large as to make them into tanks, but large enough to appear in cars that people actually buy).
Posted by: mahonj | 08 July 2019 at 01:46 AM
The importance of this is obvious. Goodwood has been a petrol head cathedral for decades. When the all-time record falls to an EV, the reverberation will spread far and wide. How long before the old petrol record falls to a road legal EV? Five years? Or even sooner?
Posted by: Bernard Harper | 08 July 2019 at 02:24 AM
At Nurburgring the VW ID.R had a 45 kWh battery. At Goodwood since the since the track length is just 1.16-mile, it had a smaller battery.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 08 July 2019 at 07:48 AM
Purpose built race cars improve branding and are good PR...have little to do with street cars; comparisons are meaningless.
Posted by: Lad | 08 July 2019 at 01:19 PM