Multiple Academy Award winning actor, Leonardo DiCaprio has come together with Venturi Automobiles to enter into the inaugural FIA Formula-E championship. Formula-E is a new series racing identical F1 style cars powered by electric motors around 10 cities across the world. With this entry, Venturi Grand Prix has become the tenth and last team to have secured entry into the series. Close to home, Mahindra has also signed up as a participant in the series with Karun Chandhok at the wheel.
Although the cars will be identical for the first season, manufacturers would be allowed to develop their own cars from the second season onwards. The car is a Spark-Renault SRT-01E powered by an MGU engine supplied by McLaren which generates 270bhp, which does speeds of 0-100kmph in 3.0 seconds. Each team will have two drivers and be given four cars.
Venturi Automobiles is a leading high performance electric vehicles developer with a range of sports, urban and utilitarian cars to its credit. They broke the world land speed record for an electric vehicle with 495kph in 2010, a feat they hope to better with the Venturi VBB-3. The Monaco-based racing division plans to become a constructor from the second season, building its own Formula E car using a powertrain based on the one used in its VB-33.
DiCaprio is no stranger to environmentally friendly cars. He was one of the first actors to publicly drive the hybrid Toyota Prius and endorse the use of eco-friendly cars. He was also an investor in Fisker, the company that makes the hybrid Fisker Karma sedan. “The future of our planet depends on our ability to embrace fuel-efficient, clean-energy vehicles,” DiCaprio said. “Venturi Grand Prix has shown tremendous foresight in their decision to create an environmentally friendly racing team, and I am happy to be a part of this effort.”
Source:WCF
