Before I joined ORECA in October 2021, my life was all about Formula 1. So although I knew ORECA as a team, from starting my career here in Le Castellet with Signature in Formula 3, I didn’t have a great deal of insight into the company beyond the fact that its chassis were dominating LMP2 since 2017. Until I started discussions with Hugues de Chaunac in mid-2021, I had no clue on what ORECA was like on the inside or what it would become today.
Two years on, we can say it’s a totally different company. The DNA is the same, but across the whole motorsport activity ORECA has expanded significantly and we’re now twice as many people. Whether Hugues anticipated it would be that big, I don’t know, but he was already clear from our first discussion that he would scale up from Ligue 1 to Champions League.
While continuing with LMP2, we have partnered on LMDh cars with Acura and Alpine. We took over the Ferrari 296 GT3 programme, with the engine division in Magny-Cours we’ve developed two hydrogen combustion engines and moved to strengthen our software development, plus the new manufacturing Technocentre in Signes is close to being completed.
It’s fair to say that ORECA isn’t as known for engines as it is for chassis construction, so we’re trying to make it known that our engine division is at the same level. ORECA has accomplished a lot on the engine side, but it didn’t always get the recognition that the race team or chassis did.
We supplied the LMP3 cars’ common engines, worked with Skoda on the Fabia R5, and entered Dakar several times. Now the hydrogen activity has really shown people what ORECA is capable of doing from scratch. We’re trying to build on this, so potential customers understand that we have the capability to make a complete racing car.
Our initial aim was to have a hydrogen powertrain ready for Dakar 2024 but, although the L4 is running, the platform to receive it is not yet there. We also have some advanced H2 engine projects with OEMs that may cover most motorsport applications, but the technology for storage and distribution of hydrogen still needs some work. Whether you store hydrogen in gas or liquid form, you need to have infrastructure and safety provisions in place which are not the work of a moment.
Source: Autosport