Alexandre Lemeray will race a MAN L90 powered by hydrogen and diesel at the 2024 Dakar Classic. As part of a new partnership with Team HoleShot Compétition, the Canadian-based dynaCERT will supply a HydraGEN HG1 unit that supplies hydrogen and oxygen into the truck’s engine.
HydraGEN is an aftermarket product that is already seeing use in heavy duty road trucks, and is compatible with OEM parts. Via electrolysis, it converts distilled water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. The company states that “even a small amount” of either element being injected into the air intake can decrease brake specific fuel consumption regardless of load while also improving diesel combustion.
“We are proud to partner with an international company such as dynaCERT that is focused on reducing carbon emissions,” said Lemeray. “For us, the purpose of being supported by dynaCERT is to show that motorsport can be less polluting, which is the starting point of our discussion with the company asking them to join us in our Dakar Classic Rally journey. HydraGEN is already used by road transport trucks, so I’m delighted to be able to show that it’s possible to ‘hybridise diesel engines with hydrogen energy’ with this technology in truck racing, all the more so in an event like the Dakar Classic Rally which takes place in the middle of nature.
“ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation), the organiser of the Dakar Classic Rally, has been making major efforts for years to reduce the carbon footprint of its events. We’re delighted to be able to make our own contribution to their efforts.”
Lemeray will be joined by Fabien Lecaplain and Jean-Baptiste Lecot as co-driver and mechanic, respectively. The trio are close friends who last raced the Dakar Classic in 2022, where their truck ran on hydrogen and water to reduce carbon dioxide. The effort was supported by students from the Lycée Curie-Corot Saint-Lô school, who sold hydroalcoholic gel to raise funds for the team to combat COVID-19.
The main Dakar Rally has embraced alternative fuel sources in recent years, which will be highlighted with its most extensive programme to date in 2024 in the form of the Mission 1000 category. Consisting of ten vehicles using hydrogen, electric, or hybrid power, Mission 1000 will follow the main rally but otherwise compete on a separate 100-kilometre course to test their capabilities. While the six bikes entered are electric, the four-wheeled vehicles—KH-7 Epsilon Team‘s MAN truck, Rainbow Truck Team‘s Volkswagen Amarok, and Japan’s HySE-X1—are all hydrogen based.
“The close collaboration with the HoleShot Compétition team and our French distributor, IPMD SAS, based in Chambly, France, makes it possible to present our HydraGEN Technology to a broad audience during the Dakar Classic Rally and to promote decarbonisation in motorsport and the transport industry,” commented dynaCERT’s Enrico Schläpfer. “The hybridisation of diesel engines with HydraGEN technology is designed to enable users to reduce emissions on a broad scale today and make the industry as a whole cleaner and greener.”
The 2024 Dakar Classic, a navigation-based rally unlike the speed- and time-centric Dakar Rally, begins on 5 January.