Formula E Championship – VENTURI TEAM
Venturi hat den wohl bekanntesten Kopf der Formel E in seinen Reihen: Leonardo DiCaprio. Der Hollywood-Star ist einer der Mitbegründer des Rennstalls aus Monaco. Gleiches gilt für Gildo Pallanca Pastor, der neben Bert Hedaya und Frances Costa einer der Gründer des Elektroauto-Herstellers Venturi Automobiles ist.
Das Unternehmen hat sich auf Hochleistungselektrofahrzeuge spezialisiert. Die Entwicklung umfasst eine Reihe von Sport-, Stadt- und Nutzfahrzeugen. Zudem hat Venturi 2015 erneut den Geschwindigkeits-Weltrekord für Elektrofahrzeuge aufgestellt.
Venturi Automobiles was founded in 1984 in France with the aim of become a maker of luxury sportscars. Initially called MVS – its Ventury model was unveiled in 1985, with production getting under way in 1987.
The renamed Venturi company briefly dabbled in motorsport, taking over the Larousse Formula 1 team in 1992 and running numerous GT versions of its cars at Le Mans and in sportscar racing. Despite fairing extremely well against its established rivals from Porsche and Ferrari, the company was struggling financially and in 2000 it was declared bankrupt.
However, there was a saviour waiting in the wings in the form of Monegasque businessman Gildo Pallanca Pastor, who acquired the assets in 2001. He made a strategic decision that the company would focus on low-volume, high-tech electric cars, putting in place the process that would ultimately take the Venturi brand into the all-electric Formula E championship.
Venturi’s adventures in electric vehicle development are far from confined to Formula E – through its sensational VBB3 ‘rocket’ it holds the Electric Land Speed record – while it has put its knowledge of operating EVs at extremes to the test with a series of expeditions to Antarctica.
While these three endeavors may appear diffuse at a glance, each has a way of helping to benefit the knowledge pool that might be transferable to a sister project, as Franck Baldet, Venturi’s Chief Technical Officer, explains.
“Mainly it happens to improve the simulation, because we always start from a simulation,” he says. “Having different kinds of vehicles means we can have different kinds of powertrain models, battery models, tracks or whatever. On the mechanical side working on a very high-speed vehicle means looking for very high-speed wheels, bearings, shafts and so on, so we can get some knowhow from this project and use it on Formula E. Then in Formula E, as in Antarctica, you need torque and torque is stress on materials. All these projects are using materials that are very high level like carbon, titanium, because we are always looking to maximize the concept.
“I can’t say that we are using a motor from VBB3 to do Formula E because the specification is different and it’s exactly the same with Antarctica. But on one side for Antarctica we are looking for torque and for VBB3 we are looking for speed and Formula E is torque and speed, so we merge the projects.”
Gründer & Teambesitzer: Gildo Pallanca Pastor
Anteilseigner: Marc Gindorf
Kommunikationschefin: Birgitt Dietel
Marketing-Chefin: Ellen Lohr
Kaufmännische Leitung: Michael Kiilerich
Marketing- & Event-Manager: Mara Frolla
Teammanager: Delphine Biscaye
Entwicklungsleiter Antriebsstrang: Louis-Marie Blondel
Technischer Direktor: Franck Baldet
Softwareverantwortlicher: Abdelkader Djellouli
Performanceingenieur: Eric Dr. Prada
