Veloqx to bring Fangio name to WEC
The Veloqx team, runner-up at the Le Mans 24
Hours in 2004, is gearing up for a return to top-flight sportscar racing with a Le Mans Hypercar bearing the Fangio name and powered by a radical environmentally friendly engine.
The British-based organisation will end an absence from the race tracks dating back to its successful
2004 season with a pair of Audi R8 LMP1 prototypes, which also yielded victory at the Sebring 12 Hours and a clean sweep of all four races in the Le Mans Series.
It is developing its own LMH prototype and engine for a project that is likely to hit the race track in the World Endurance Championship in 2025.
Team founder Sam Li said: “I was 28 when we stopped at the end of 2004 and I needed to focus on my business in real estate. I’ve worked with a manufacturer and been successful, but I wanted to grow the company to the point where I could have more added value technically. I am now committed to trying to win Le Mans under the Veloqx name.”
Li has trademarked the Fangio name of five-time Formula 1 world champion Juan Manuel in the motorsport and automotive realms. He said that the name “symbolises the best” and that he hoped
“Mr Fangio would be proud of our projects”.
Development of the car to be known as Veloqx Fangio Hypercar has already started. A test vehicle that will also lead into the development of a limited-production supercar for the road is already up and running with a Ferrari V12 engine (pictured, below left).
At the heart of Li’s return to racing as a constructor is what the team is describing as the Veloqx variable zeroemission fuel engine. The powerplant has been conceived to run on a variety of biofuels, including green hydrogen.
“We want to use endurance racing and the platform provided by the Automobile Club de l’ouest [the Le Mans organiser and WEC promoter] to validate this technology,” explained Li. “We want to have multiple teams running our LMH against each other on a variety of fuels. We believe that different oil companies in different jurisdictions will have different solutions for a zero-emissions fuel format.”
Li conceded that the Veloqx vision will most likely have to wait until 2025 before becoming a reality.
This is because the WEC has extended its deal with Totalenergies for the exclusive supply of fuel for another three seasons, which will encompass the switch to a biofuel for next year. But he didn’t rule out the Fangio racing in 2024 on Total fuel.
Veloqx is already working with former Audi Sport engine boss Ulrich Baretzky, whose powerplants won Le Mans 14 times, on the new engine concept.
Baretzky, who retired from Audi last year, said:
“Sam and I are thinking along the same lines. What we are talking about is important to guarantee the future of motorsport by keeping it attractive.”
Li said he will be recruiting an “industry leader” to head up the project technically. The programme will be based in the same workshops in Brackley from which its Audis and Ferraris were run.
The racing project is allied to Li’s latest real estate venture, a not-for-profit biomass generation scheme using only brownfield land to create carbon credits. He explained that this would be used to provide a carbon offset for any future Veloqx projects.
Li hasn’t ruled out a Veloqx return in the closer future and suggested that it could be back on the grid as early as next year. He said he was talking with a manufacturer about exploiting the route in the LMH category with a road-based contender.
Veloqx was established for an attack on the 2002 British GT Championship with a Gt2-class Ferrari 360 Modena. Jamie Davies won the title before the team graduated to the FIA GT Championship with the 360, and an assault on Sebring and Le Mans with a pair of 550 Maranello GTSS run in conjunction with Prodrive.
The team stopped competing at the end of 2004, despite at one point looking as though it was on course to move into the DTM with Audi.