Polestar Cyan Racing

For other uses, see Polestar (disambiguation).
For the American Formula Atlantic racing team, see Polestar Racing Group.
For the Australian V8 Supercar racing team, see Garry Rogers Motorsport.
Sweden Polestar Cyan Racing
Founded 1996 (as Flash Engineering)
Team principal(s) Christian Dahl
Current series

Scandinavian Touring Car Championship

V8 Supercars (via GRM)
Former series World Touring Car Championship
TTA – Racing Elite League
Teams'
Championships		 7 (2002, 2003, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014)
Drivers'
Championships		 6 (1996, 1997, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014)

Polestar Cyan Racing is the official Volvo factory auto racing team, based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The team currently competes in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship (STCC). The team’s current drivers are Fredrik Ekblom, Thed Björk and Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland, who race Volvo S60s in the Scandinavian championship.

The team was founded by Jan "Flash" Nilsson as Flash Engineering in 1996. Christian Dahl bought the team in 2005 and renamed it Polestar Racing. After Dahl sold the Polestar performance road car division to Volvo, the team was renamed Cyan Racing.

Racing history

The Swedish Touring Car Championship was created in 1996 as a copy of the successful British Touring Car Championship. Volvo, which had been competing in the BTCC since 1994, partnered with the newly founded, Halmstad-based Flash Engineering racing team, owned by Swedish driver Jan "Flash" Nilsson. Volvo provided financial support and the cars. The team initially raced a Volvo 850, and moved to a S40 in 1998. In 2000, the team moved to Karlstad. The team began racing a Volvo S60 in 2003, and raced those cars through the 2007 season. Following the introduction of Super 2000 rules in 2003, the team took over technical development of both the engines and the chassis from Volvo.

In 2005, Nilsson sold the Flash Engineering team to Christian Dahl, and it was renamed Polestar Racing. Polestar entered one Volvo C30, developed from scratch by Polestar in 2008, for the 2011 WTCC season, driven by Robert Dahlgren.[1] 2012 saw Polestar racing in the new Swedish break-away touring car championship TTA[2] with a Volvo S60 TTA. 2013 saw TTA and STCC merging back again as one championship,[3] with Polestar entering five cars for the 2013 season.[4]

Volvo announced in July 2015 that it had purchased Polestar Performance, the production car tuning division of Polestar, as well as the Polestar brand. The Polestar Racing team will remain under the direction of Christian Dahl and be given a new name. Cyan Racing[5][6] and prototypes.[7]

The racingcars for Cyan Racing in STCC 2015

Achievements

Jan Nilsson, driving for Flash Engineering, won the STCC in its inaugural season (1996), as well as 1997. Volvo won the Manufacturer's Championship in 2002, with Flash Engineering winning 6 of the series' 18 rounds; and again in 2003 with Flash Engineering winning 4 of the series' 16 races. Tommy Rustad won the 2009 STCC drivers championship driving for Polestar Racing. 2010 saw Polestar winning the teams' championship of STCC. 2012 marked a new record for Polestar by claiming all three titles of the 2012 TTA – Racing Elite League season, including teams', manufacturers' and drivers' title with Fredrik Ekblom.[8] 2013 and 2014 meant continued success as Thed Björk claimed two straight drivers' titles and the team two consecutive teams' titles.[9] [10]

Current season

The team claimed the drivers' and teams' titles of the 2014 Scandinavian Touring Car Championship with Thed Björk becoming drivers' champion, Fredrik Ekblom finishing third overall and Prince Carl Philip Bernadotte 12th.[11]

Environmentally friendly racing

Volvo promoted the use of E85 in the STCC, and that series became the first production car championship series in which bioethanol is allowed, and WTCC.[12] Volvo claims that using E85 results in as much as 80% reduction of fossil-fuel based CO2 emissions. Though experts predicted that ethanol-based cars would be disadvantaged in terms of performance compared to petrol-fueled cars,[13] Polestar's S60, powered by E85, won both the first and second rounds of the 2007 Swedish Touring Car Championship season.[14][15]

The racing version of the Volvo C30, which was jointly developed by Polestar and Volvo,[16] represents a reversal of the usual process, whereby manufacturers take race-proven innovations and incorporate them into their production cars. With the C30, Volvo has taken technology from the C30 DRIVe street car, and implemented them to make a more fuel efficient race car.[17]

References

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