The Azkoitia team unveils its first Spanish Le Mans prototype in Paul Ricard´s Le Mans Series achieving top times with Angel Burgueño as a driver.
It´s the first time that a Spanish team designs and builds a prototype to hit the highest prestige race in the World, the 24 Heures du Mans. It always planned to be a constructor of high tech sports cars which now turned into reality when presenting the ee1 LMP1 prototype on the French track. When Angel Burgueño set first gear to drive the initial meters, an expectant public applauded and fulfilled the team with emotions. The testing programme has been very intense those two days, initially focussing to learn the car and progressively improving mechanical and aerodynamic set ups. The car responded positively and its performance improvement dramatically. To highlight that the car already reached a top speed of 321 km/h, in line with the best cars and teams like Audi.By the end of today´s last session the car finished in eight place. From its conception, the objective has been to create a winning car. The best materials, titanium and last generation carbon fibre and composites, have been specified. There´s been an almost obsessive drive to look for genuine competitive advantages implementing ideas to deliver weight reduction and lower gravity centre in order to obtain top mechanical performance. Spain´s motor sport is enjoying incredible good times, but Epsilon´s project means a gear shift up. It´s an industry project that starts in high level education for young engineers passes through design and R&D and now closes the loop producing its first product, the ee1 LMP1 Le Mans prototype.It´s for this reason that is not just a project but the National project in motor sport. In Joan Villadelprat´s own words in today´s press conference, “the laps that Angel Burgueño has done in Paul Ricard are much more than just a number of laps of a racing car, are the first steps towards a new era for Epsilon Euskadi and the Spanish motor sport. A new high performance cars constructor is born and Spain joins the limited club of Nations that do have them”. To materialise all its objectives, Epsilon Euskadi is building its new premises and innovation centre in the Parque Tecnológico de Alava (Vitoria). In a year time, this infrastructure will accommodate all the activities of this unique genial idea, education, R&D, design and manufacturing under the same roof around motor sport. The new prototype shown to the world today at Paul Ricard is a proof of Epsilon´s people capability to design and produce a sophisticated racing.car. The new innovation centre in Vitoria will be fully equipped with composites / carbon fibre, precision speed milling – CNC- , wind tunnel – first in the country -.The Le Mans prototype is fundamental for the development of the new centre. Epsilon Euskadi as a team will participate with its ee1 LMP1 the full Le Mans Series season and the 24 Heures du Mans opening international markets and create a new international sponsorship opportunity.
