Polestar Cyan Racing

Sweden Polestar Cyan Racing
Founded 1996 (as Flash Engineering)
Team principal(s) Christian Dahl
Current series World Touring Car Championship
Swedish GT
Former series Scandinavian Touring Car Championship
TTA – Racing Elite League
V8 Supercars (via GRM)
Teams'
Championships		 7 (2002, 2003, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014)
Drivers'
Championships		 6 (1996, 1997, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014)

Polestar Cyan Racing is the official Volvo factory auto racing team, based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The team currently competes in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship (STCC). The team’s current drivers are Fredrik Ekblom, Thed Björk and Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland, who race Volvo S60s in the Scandinavian championship.

The team was founded by Jan "Flash" Nilsson as Flash Engineering in 1996. Christian Dahl bought the team in 2005 and renamed it Polestar Racing. After Dahl sold the Polestar performance road car division to Volvo, the team was renamed Cyan Racing.

History

The Swedish Touring Car Championship was created in 1996 as a copy of the successful British Touring Car Championship. Volvo, which had been competing in the BTCC since 1994, partnered with the newly founded, Halmstad-based Flash Engineering racing team, owned by Swedish driver Jan "Flash" Nilsson. Volvo provided financial support and the cars.

In 2005, Nilsson sold the Flash Engineering team to Christian Dahl, and it was renamed Polestar Racing.

Volvo announced in July 2015 that it had purchased Polestar Performance, the production car tuning division of Polestar, as well as the Polestar brand. The Polestar Racing team remained under the direction of Christian Dahl, and was rebranded Cyan Racing[1][2] and prototypes.[3]

The racingcars for Cyan Racing in STCC 2015

Achievements

Flash Engineering initially raced a Volvo 850. Team owner Jan Nilsson won the STCC in its inaugural season (1996), as well as 1997. Flash moved to a S40 in 1998. In 2000, the team moved to Karlstad.

Volvo won the Manufacturer's Championship in 2002, with Flash Engineering winning 6 of the series' 18 rounds. Following the introduction of Super 2000 rules in 2003, the team took over technical development of both the engines and the chassis from Volvo. With the new Volvo S60, they won the Manufacturer's Championship again in 2003, with Flash Engineering winning 4 of the series' 16 races.

Tommy Rustad won the 2009 STCC drivers championship driving for Polestar Racing. 2010 saw Polestar winning the STCC teams' championship.

For the 2011 WTCC season, Polestar entered one Volvo C30, developed from scratch by Polestar, driven by Robert Dahlgren.[4]

2012 saw Polestar racing in the new Swedish break-away touring car championship TTA[5] with a Volvo S60 Solution-F. The team claimed all three titles of the 2012 TTA – Racing Elite League season, including teams', manufacturers' and drivers' title with Fredrik Ekblom.[6]

2013 saw TTA and STCC merging back again as one championship,[7] with Polestar entering five cars for the 2013 season.[8] 2013 and 2014 meant continued success as Thed Björk claimed two straight drivers' titles and the team two consecutive teams' titles.[9] [10] The team claimed the drivers' and teams' titles of the 2014 Scandinavian Touring Car Championship with Thed Björk becoming drivers' champion, Fredrik Ekblom finishing third overall and Prince Carl Philip Bernadotte 12th.[11]

As STCC adopted the TCR technical regulations for the 2017 season, Polestar Cyan Racing decided to leave the championship, joining the Swedish GT series with the Volvo S60 Solution-F..

Environmentally friendly racing

Volvo promoted the use of E85 in the STCC, and that series became the first production car championship series in which bioethanol is allowed, and WTCC.[12] Volvo claims that using E85 results in as much as 80% reduction of fossil-fuel based CO2 emissions. Though experts predicted that ethanol-based cars would be disadvantaged in terms of performance compared to petrol-fueled cars,[13] Polestar's S60, powered by E85, won both the first and second rounds of the 2007 Swedish Touring Car Championship season.[14][15]

The racing version of the Volvo C30, which was jointly developed by Polestar and Volvo,[16] represents a reversal of the usual process, whereby manufacturers take race-proven innovations and incorporate them into their production cars. With the C30, Volvo has taken technology from the C30 DRIVe street car, and implemented them to make a more fuel efficient race car.[17]

References

  1. ↑ Zander, Christina (2015-07-14). "Volvo Buys 100% of Swedish Car-Tuning Company Polestar". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2015-07-17.
  2. ↑ http://www.polestar.com/en-int/performance/polestar-cars/volvo-s60-polestar-limited-edition/
  3. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-04-18. Retrieved 2013-01-23.
  4. ↑ http://www.fiawtcc.com/Read_News.asp?idNews=693
  5. ↑ http://www.touringcartimes.com/article.php?id=6630
  6. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-10-05. Retrieved 2015-07-17.
  7. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-12-26. Retrieved 2015-07-17.
  8. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-02-05. Retrieved 2015-07-17.
  9. ↑ http://www.touringcartimes.com/2013/09/07/richard-goransson-wins-at-tierp-while-thed-bjork-takes-stcc-title/
  10. ↑ http://teknikensvarld.se/thed-bjork-stcc-mastare-2014-160111/
  11. ↑ http://www.stccdatabas.se/result.php
  12. ↑ Volvo...victory for the environment
  13. ↑ Bio-fuel Volvo enters Anderstorp
  14. ↑ A victory for a greener motor sport STCC silver medal for Volvo
  15. ↑ A Victory for Volvo and a Victory for the Environment
  16. ↑ volvo cars develops a new racing car for stcc
  17. ↑ Här är Volvos nya "gröna" STCC-bil
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