24h Le Mans
The Belgian LMP2 driver racing for JOTA spent the run-up to the 24 Hours of Le Mans shuttling between the paddock and the Maison Blanche base of his other team, H24Racing. He’s a dab hand at switching hats, having already gained experience with hybrids in Formula One, all-electric cars in Formula E, and standard petrol engines in endurance. An impressive array of skills that will serve him well as the hydrogen era dawns in competition. Does he feel more like a driver or a developer?
“A bit of both probably. I’ve always been interested in technology, and now new technologies. Throughout my career, I’ve wanted to be involved in all the motor sports, especially those that use different technologies. With Formula One, I worked on hybrid cars, with Kers. In Formula E, I was working with all-electric cars, where brake energy recovery technology is pushed to a very high level.
Now, with hydrogen, I’m in a field that’s closer to electric than it is to Formula One. The lap times, the brake-by-wire system, the regeneration and the software settings are similar," said Vandoorne, who clinched a podium place in Berlin at the final championship race of the 2020-2021 Formula E championship. He is a former Formula 1 McLaren driver and continues to work as a development driver for Mercedes.
With H24Racing, a team born from MissionH24 – the ACO-GreenGT joint project to introduce a hydrogen class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2025 – Stoffel Vandoorne knows that he will alternate between performance and development phases, with much of the emphasis on development. “We’re discovering this new technology together with the engineers. It’s not just about speed, but also about understanding the car as a whole, with all its systems. It’s nothing like the work required for a race weekend. We know that. I was really excited to be a part of this project, not least because the main driver, Norman Nato, is a friend. He’d been talking about this project which seemed amazing. And, more to the point, in Formula E, which is a relatively new championship, I’d noticed that the drivers involved right from the outset had a considerable advantage. They had already got into it with another generation of cars. So I wanted to be one of the first drivers involved in developing this hydrogen car because that’s the future of racing. We have a story to tell with hydrogen, especially in the current times where we need to reduce carbon emissions. I belong to a generation of drivers who are ambassadors and feel responsible for making competitions greener. So I can’t wait to discover the potential of this technology. Obviously, there’s still work to do and considerable development phases, but it’s really exciting.”
