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Just read on page 91 of this months race car engineering magazine that the R18 hybrid system is infact the same williams based electro-flywheel system used by porsche in the GT3R Hybrid, the logic being that Audi are parts of the same group as porsche and it will also help Porsces LMP1 development.......shocker!!!......the information comes from Hartmut Kristen who is the motorsports director at Porsche.........I must admit to being very surprised at this news as the Williams system is a complex and weighty beast, looks totally un-related to road car technology and nowhere near as simple and light as Flybrids pure mechanical flywheel system.........If I remember correctly this Williams flywheel KERS system is shockingly heavy, 47Kg for the flywheel, 10Kg for the power electronics plus another 20Kg (approx) for the front axle based motor/generator, so approx 77Kg......... consider an F1 style KERS system weighs about 20-30Kg and its a real difference.....hmmmm........it must have been a packaging nightmare putting all that clobber in an LMP1 tub, perhaps thats another reason why it was re-designed???...
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