Monster Energy X-RAID Team Unveils MINI ALL4 RACING for World Debut on Gruelling 2011 DAKAR RALLY in South America

MINI ALL4 Racing Countryman for Dakar Rally 2011 by X-Raid - Front Side View

MINI ALL4 Racing Countryman for Dakar Rally 2011 by X-Raid – Front Side View

The X-raid Team denounced an sparkling new cross-country engine foe programme to run and rise a MINI All4 Racing in ubiquitous competition.
The plan was initial discussed in a summer of 2009 and a rival entrance of a new MINI All4 Racing will be in a hands of a French convene organisation of Guerlain Chicherit and co-driver Michel Périn in January’s 33rd Personal Dakar Argentina-Chile. The eventuality starts in Buenos Aires on New Year’s Day and finishes in a Argentine collateral on Sunday, Jan 16th, 2011. The new MINI All4 Racing will form partial of X-raid’s seven-car Dakar group – a largest ever entered by a group in a 33-year story of a world’s many famous off-road convene – and a third of 3 vehicles regulating on a eventuality underneath a Monster Energy X-raid Team banner.

X-raid group executive Sven Quandt began looking during a feasibility of a plan in 2009 and hold initial discussions with automotive engineering and prolongation association Magna Steyr and BMW to see either a new indication was a picturesque deputy for a BMW/MINI X3 CC – that has warranted a Trebur-based group 3 unbroken FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rally titles given 2008. Quandt perceived a immature light for a new plan from BMW in Jun 2010 and Magna Steyr gave their full capitulation on Sep 24th. Initial skeleton for a new plan were discussed
at length via Oct in Graz, Austria. The MINI Design group and Magna have managed a pattern of a vehicle. Quandt and operative Martin Ertl, a former X-raid staff operative who also manages a Formula 3 racing team, have overseen a new plan on interest of X-raid.

Construction of a new MINI All4 Racing cross-country convene vehicle began in Nov and has continued into December. The vehicle will be put by a initial array of tests in France on Dec 13/14th. It will afterwards be ecstatic by airfreight to South America for final preparations for scrutineering in Buenos Aires during a finish of a month.

The MINI will be powered by non-static twin-turbo diesel engine that is propitious to a 2011-specification BMW X3 CC and built in Steyr a same place as a MINI and BMW diesel engines are made. The energy section delivers in a segment of 315hp and 710Nm of torque. This is an boost compared to a outlay of a 2010-specification BMW X3 CCs used on a Dakar Rally to sign fourth and fifth places final January. “This is a vital growth in cross-country rallying and something of that we are really excited,” certified Quandt. “There has been a really brief time between a preference to go forward and a hurl out for a subsequent Dakar, though we are assured that a new MINI All4 Racing will be rival out of a box. “Compared to a BMW X3CC, a MINI will be characterised by softened doing as a altogether length is shorter and it is lower. We have also been means to urge on many other smaller details, such as a relocation of smaller components to reduce a centre of gravity.”

The MINI advantages from incomparable atmosphere intakes, a one-piece carp and a revised and softened movement complement regulating a front atmosphere intake and a roof intake. Visibility inside a MINI All4 Racing is not on a standard with a BMW X3 CC and entrance and exit of a vehicle for a occupants is somewhat some-more difficult, though Quandt is gay with ubiquitous improvements nonetheless. Quandt confirms that a MINI All4 Racing is 10 cm shorter than a BMW X3 CC, about 3 cm reduce than a prototype and has a 10 cm reduced back overhang when compared to a BMW. Magna Steyr underneath a plan lead of Hermann Pecnik has been obliged for judgment design, a technical drawings and calculations, as good as a prolongation information and correspondence with
stringent FIA regulations ruling cross-country engine foe The support and framework components were designed by Büren-based Heggemann Autosport GmbH and Faster worked on a finish carbon-kevlar physique and supposing Magna-Steyr with assistance on a construction of a MINI.
Quandt reckons that a MINI All4 Racing is some-more use accessible than a X3 CC, as all a physique panels can be private within mins to give easier entrance to critical automatic components. The skin of a MINI, for example, can be altered within reduction than 30 minutes.

The BMW X3 CC was grown over a duration of 5 years and all this growth has been utilized by a MINI All4 Racing. The new vehicle runs entirely within a 2010 regulations and should be rival from a outset. The X-raid group has also reliable that TÜV Rheinland is to support a three-car Monster Energy X-raid Team entries for Chicherit, Stéphane Peterhansel and Portugal’s Ricardo Leal De Santos on a 33rd Personal Dakar Argentina-Chile. Colognebased TÜV Rheinland is a heading tellurian provider of technical, contrast and comment services, has 490 locations in 61
countries and a workforce of 14,500. The association has a prolonged story in a automotive attention and is serve heading in vehicle inspection, a use supposing as good in Germany as in Chile, Argentina, Spain, France and Lituvia.

“The X-raid judgment of a MINI fits really good to TÜV Rheinland, therefore we are blissful to support a group in a 2011 Dakar. A lot of a 2,000 staff members in South America are rarely meddlesome in a Dakar”, says Caio da Silva, TÜV Rheinland Chief Regional Officer South America.
The BMW X-raid team’s immeasurable array of apparatus is now creation a approach to South America to arrive in good time for scrutineering and support in Buenos Aires on Dec 30th-31st. Seven competition cars, dual competition trucks (one MAN and a Kamaz), 8 use trucks, 6 assistance vehicles, dual press cars and a group of around 80 people make X-raid’s plea for honours in a 2011 Dakar Rally a biggest in a team’s history.

MINI ALL4 RACING