Electric feeling .. . Dunedin rally driver Emma Gilmour will get back on board the Veloce Racing e-SUV for the Sardinian round of the Extreme Eseries this weekend.
Emma Gilmour’s long career has seen her get behind the wheel of some varied vehicles around the globe, all of which have stood her in good stead for taming her latest charger. Catherine Pattison caught up with the Dunedin rally driver who is competing in the Extreme E series, piloting an electric off-road SUV that requires her to harness all the race craft she’s learned in the past.
SPEAKING from Europe, where she will be based for the foreseeable future, as she “plays the MIQ lottery’’, Emma Gilmour says she hit the ground running in August’s Greenland round of the Extreme E series, based in Kangerlussuaq.
After being signed as London-based Veloce Racing’s reserve team member, Gilmour was promoted into the hot seat when the team’s female driver Jamie Chadwick, had a date clash with the W Series.
As the Extreme E’s fleet of one-design Odyssey 21s were on route to Greenland, via the sea, by the time she arrived in England, Gilmour was unable to test drive the Veloce e-SUV.
Turning up to the race location, having had zero seat time in the Odyssey, she was understandably relieved when the reserve drivers were able to take a quick spin in the series’ car.
Large, heavy and built to handle the brutal conditions the five-round series races on, at 1780kg, the e-SUV is nearly half a tonne heavier than Gilmour’s usual Suzuki Swift AP4.
“My rally car is more refined, but it’s designed for rallying on roads not going off road like the Odyssey. It was very rough over the jumps, bumps and dunes. Inside the car it was hard to focus at times with how much we were getting bounced around,” Gilmour said.
Compared to the two-pass reconnaissance sessions, which are standard in the international rallies she has competed in, the Greenland course walk on foot didn’t give her an accurate feel for how the Odyssey would handle the terrain. There was also no codriver calling the pace notes, leaving her to become acquainted with the e-SUV’s pace and cornering on her own.
Designed to withstand punishing temperatures and conditions, the Odyssey’s 54kWh battery pack produces a maximum power output of 470kW (equivalent to about 630bhp). It blasts the 2.3m-wide beast from 0-100kmh in 4.5 seconds, at gradients of up to 130 per cent.
“The Odyssey is relatively easy to drive. There’s no gearbox so you just put your foot down and there’s really nice power on tap, on such a linear torque curve. It didn’t feel as big as it looks but it is still a challenge to get the most out of it when all drivers have the same equipment.”
Emma Gilmour in action in Greenland
What viewers watching this Extreme E round on screens didn’t realise was just how challenging the terrain was, Gilmour said. With the Russell Glacier’s towering ice cliff as its backdrop, there was a mixture of rocks, boulders and fine sediment scattered throughout the course.
Big is necessarily better in Extreme E, as Gilmour said the e-SUVs “take a huge beating.”
Able to call on her off-road experience from contesting long-haul cross-country rallies in Qatar and Italy in 2016, Gilmour funneled the knowledge of driving on sand into the short, sharp Extreme E laps.
In the series, all teams have a male and female driver, who share equal racing duties. Gilmour’s Veloce Racing teammate is Frenchman Stephane Sarrazin. Along with being a nice bloke, he was conveniently a similar height to Gilmour. It meant that when the fraught, mid-race driver change took place, no seat inserts were required and they could swap from one to the other seamlessly.
Entering the pit lane at 30kmh was a requirement, otherwise teams receive a penalty and the drivers are not allowed to touch their seat belts until the car is in neutral. Gilmour admitted it was an area she will be looking to improve on at the up-coming Sardinia round, after cutting the power too early in Greenland as she approached the speed-restricted area.
The teams had their first practise run on the Friday. Then it was straight into two rounds of qualifying time trials on the Saturday. Each qualifying run consisted of one lap each by both drivers and points are awarded for the finishing position which was based on the combined times from both qualifying runs (four laps in total). Having never raced an electric vehicle before, Gilmour had to acquaint herself with a feature exclusively employed by battery-powered cars. During the Extreme E races, one hyper drive power boost could be used per lap which provided extra power for four seconds.
“The hyper-drive feature is another thing to get used to and it becomes strategic about when to use it on the course to make the biggest gains against other teams.”
The qualifying standings also determine which second round race each team advances to. On the Sunday, Veloce Racing made it through to a threee-SUV line-up in the first semifinal. This multi-car situation allowed Gilmour to hark back to her rally cross days when she drove for the Hyundai USA Global Rally Cross team in 2014.
“I was lucky to have had that different experience. Rally cross makes you more comfortable being amongst other cars. You have to be a little bit smart about it and preserve the [Extreme E] cars as the terrain is tougher than a rally cross course.”
Sarrazin pushed the e-SUV to its limits and found them in the semi-final when he took an alternative route through the rock garden.
Making a last-ditch attempt to move into the lead with the finish line in sight, the boulders he was hurtling over punctured a tyre and collapsed the steering arm. Game over for the Veloce Racing team.
Not making it to the final wasn’t her goal for the weekend, but Gilmour had plenty of amazing anecdotes to add to her international driving scrapbook. After the past four years of competing solely in New Zealand – travelling the country contesting the New Zealand
Rally Championship - Extreme E ramped up Gilmour’s usual travel and lodging standards by a couple of notches.
All the teams flew into Greenland on a chartered plane together and they stayed on the series’ St Helena vessel in the harbor. The floating centerpiece and base transports the championship’s freight and infrastructure, including the race vehicles, to the port nearest each of the five race destinations. A former Royal Mail cargo-passenger ship, she has undergone an extensive multi-million Euro renovation to transform her into “a high standard of accommodation,” Gilmour said.
“It’s like a five-star hotel.”
The company wasn’t too shabby either, and she rubbed shoulders with former, multiple-time World Rally Champions Sebastien Loeb and Carlos Sainz, who were both driving and team owner Formula One World Champion Jenson Button.
“I spent lots of time with the other drivers. Everyone got along really well. There was a nice atmosphere in the pits.”
Aside from the luxury transport and on-water base, there was no excessive glitz or glamour surrounding the environmentally focused championship on-event. Teams are limited to eight personnel total, including the two drivers. There are no spectators and only a select few approved media in attendance. The teams also used their own plates and cutlery, like they were camping, to minimise waste for the event.
RETURNING to England after the August racing, Gilmour had it confirmed that Chadwick would be double booked for the Island Prix Extreme E round in Sardinia [being held this weekend]. So she elected to forgo coming back to New Zealand and forfeited her managed isolation quarantine (MIQ) spot. Staying on in the United Kingdom, she is living with her former co-driver Claire Mole in Scotland.
“I would’ve had about three weeks of freedom if I was lucky, then I’d have to turn around and fly back to the UK,” Gilmour said.
The New Zealand Government then further restricted MIQ opportunities, leaving Gilmour stranded overseas, away from family, friends and her car dealership business in Dunedin. While she is grateful to her team at work for doing a great job in her absence, she soon developed itchy driving feet. To alleviate the symptoms, she recently signed up to contest the Visit Conwy Cambrian Rally held on northern Wales’s forestry roads.
Gilmour and Mole decided to rekindle their in-car partnership that began in 2006 and continued through to 2013. The pair, who have rallied together in Europe, Asia and New Zealand, will contest the seven-stage Welsh event in a Ford Fiesta R5 car, prepared by Martin Wilkinson and CA1 Sport.
“It’s the best class of car out there that’s accessible at a world level. Obviously, it’s not a WRC car but it’s the next best thing. I’d like to say a big thanks to Martin Wilkinson and CA1 Sport Ltd, who will be running the R5, and to my long term sponsor Vantage Windows and Doors who are supporting our entry.”
“I’m also really looking forward to rallying with Claire. We haven’t been in the car together since 2013 when we did the International Rally of Whangarei,” Gilmour said.
But this weekend, the weekend before she heads to Wales, she is in Sardinia racing in the Extreme E’s penultimate round. After studying the data and in-car footage from Greenland she feels better prepared for her second outing, which will be held in the army training area at Capo Teulad in Sulcis-Iglesiente.
The route in this historic area situated in south-west Sardinia will be around 7km, and the organisers promise a completely contrasting landscape to the previous three rounds. Teams can expect a harder compact surface with multiple rocks and bushes plus dry, cracked riverbeds. Myriad racing lines should allow for overtaking opportunities and the course will mix up fast-flowing areas with tight corners.
Following the excitement of racing in two contrasting European destinations, in as many weeks, Gilmour will return to hitting the refresh button on the MIQ website. She will go from trying to beat some of the world’s best off-road racers in an e-SUV; and clocking the fastest possible times in a top-level rally car, to having a computer system decide her result.
“Sadly, I don’t think I’ll get home this year,” Gilmour said.
She was staying positive and has been working on her 2022 plans.
“I’ve been an Extreme E reserve driver this year, but hopefully I’ll be a number one driver for next year.”
Extreme E is broadcast in New Zealand on Duke TV and Extreme E’s YouTube Channel.
- Catherine Pattison
