GT Focus: Barwell Motorsport
A quick look at the Aston Martin team that's a front runner in this seasons British GT Championship
Barwell Motorsport have been racing competitively for 30 years in various forms, but turned professional in 1990 running a Mazda MX-5 in the self titled Cup series, and even ran a car for Donny Osmand. They competed in various disciplines throughout the 90's, notching up over 50 race victories and 3 championships. They then upped a gear in 1999 when they moved into their current premises in Bookham, Surrey and had the facilities to compete in BTCC Production Class. In 2000 and 2001 they gained 18 wins and two championship runner-up spots. The next years were very successful racing BTCC Touring and Production Class before switching to Britcar series in 2004. In 2005 the team ran across multiple championships: competing in Formula BMW (which they had started in 2004), SEAT Cupra Cup and Britcar. Last year they were the inugural British GT3 Champions and also took part in the FIA GT3 championship both with the DBRS9.
The Barwell runners and riders for this season are:
Car number one: Paul Drayson and Jonny Cocker
Car number two: Tom Alexander and Michael Bentwood
Car number three: Guy Harrington and Ben De Zille Butler
Although all of Barwell's Aston Martins are green, for one of the cars this is more than just the colour. Out of the three DBRS9s the Barwell team will be running, the Drayson's car will be converted to run on Bio Ethanol-fuel. This is a first for both Aston Martin and the British GT Championship and Barwell Motorsport have become a campaign partner with the Energy Efficient Motorsport (EEMS) body.
The Bio Ethanol-fuelled engines can produce the same amount of horsepower as a conventional petrol engine, but to achieve this the fuel injector, fuel line and fuel pump delivery capacity has to be increased to account for the less energy produced by the petrol. As this results in more fuel being used the team are very conscious of developing the engine to be as efficient as possible.
The first outing of the season at Oulton Park certainly proved that the Bio Ethanol-fuelled car can do the business by firstly putting the Bio Ethanol run car on pole position, the first ever for an eco-fuelled car. The rest of the cars had equal success with the team securing two runner-up spots and all the cars in the points for both races.
Barwell will also be hosting the second PH fan forum this weekend. Twenty lucky PHers will be asking the team whatever they choose in a pit garage session on Sunday, and they will also be getting free race day tickets too.
Keep an eye out for similar opportunities throughout the season.
www.eemsonline.co.uk/press_releases/15-03-07
It's a good site if you want to see what's going on to encourage energy efficiency and low carbon in all sorts of motorsport.
www.barwellmotorsport.co.uk
...which means it produces just as much CO2 as it would if it were using petrol.
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That's true. Or at least true enough even it is not exactly the same. Biofuels don't magically offer something for nothing. But the point is that the carbon has been derived from a renewable resourse, i.e. a crop, so it is taking CO2 from the atmosphere, converting it into a fuel, then releasing it back when the fuel is used. So the amount of CO2 in the cycle stays the same. The problem with fossil fuels is that they release CO2 that has been burried for millions of years, adding to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. So biofuels; bioethanol, biodiesel, bioanythingelse, are good.
You've got me there helem
Sounds like a question for Barwell - who I'm SURE are now avid readers of Pistonheads 
There is some debate on that at the moment. certainly the growing and the burning of bio fuels are carbon neutral
but there is some debate on the carbon cost of production and transportation of Bio Fuels. I believe current production methods are quite intensive. There is also the argument over where you grow the stuff. if you chop the rain forest down to grow the stuff, then its not actually helping...
Its something im quite interested in as we're looking at E85 to run the Tuscan Race Car on.
g
In the first instance, mixing biofuels with ordinary road fuels (like Tesco 99 – E5) will lead to small reductions in overall CO2 emissions while utilising that infrastructure. As production grows it will become more efficient. It’s similar to making whiskey or vegetable oil and we seem to have got the hang of that. There will also be a virtuous circle – more of the energy used to make the fuels can be derived from biofuels. They will provide heat, power generators and vehicles.
But you’re right that we can’t plough up the whole country (or the rainforests) to plant sugar beet or cane. Biofuels are only one part of the solution.
Whatever we use for fuel we have to use it more efficiently. This is where energy efficient motorsport comes in. An example would be the Oaktec hybrid rally car. They race prepped a Honda Insight and converted it to run on E85. www.eemsonline.co.uk/hybridrallycar they say it can do 700 miles on 40 litres, so that’s………80mpg!
But you’d be doing your bit by converting the Tuscan. So go for it!
I think EEMS can help with info on what needs to be done and perhaps how to get the extra power that E85 offers. Except that:
1) You have to actually grow the replacement stuff, not just make noises about it, and
2) The area of land needed is excessive to make any significant impact on fossil fuel useage.
Also, there is a fundamental difference between the effectiveness of petrol replacements (ie. bioethanol) and synthetic diesel; the latter is cleaner than 'traditional' diesel and also has a higher cetane number, so carries combustion benefits whereas - as the thread discusses - bioethanol requires more fuel to be burned for no net difference in CO2 production between it and 'traditional' petrol.
Synthetic fuels have a much longer history than most people realise; 60 years ago the Germans were producing and using them in high quantities for aircraft, tanks, etc. and the production methods they developed are still in use now (Fischer-Tropf being the one used by Shell to produce their Le Mans-winning diesel for Audi. The feedstock for this, syngas, can be derived from a variety of waste material sources, thus not taking up crop space that could otherwise be used for food production).
So are replacement fuels any good? That all depends on which one and the method of manufacture.
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