e-Rally - I Eco Rallye Bilbao Petronor arrives to the city
Although being the first edition, the event achieves an amazing entry list of 47 participants, including 41 electric vehicles.
Bilbao, 9th October 2019. The I Eco Rallye Bilbao Petronor, accountable both for FIA e-Rally Regularity Cup and the Spanish Campeonato de España de Energías Alternativas, will be held on October 11, 12 and 13 with a record for participation. A total of 47 vehicles have registered, surpassing any previous entry list within the FIA Cup or the Spanish Championship.
The I Eco Rallye Bilbao Petronor is organized by Real Peña Motorista de Vizcaya (R.P.M.V.) with the sponsorship of Petronor and the Bilbao City Council. R.P.M.V. is a motorsport club founded in Bilbao in 1923, and since its inception until today has been the protagonist of evolution and innovation in the motor world. Historically known by being the organizer of the Rallye Firestone during 60s, 70s and 80s, accountable for the European Rally Championship (counting among its winners with Jean Todt, Sandro Munari or Walter Röhrl); and more recently dedicated to the organization of tests of speed (slalom, rallysprint, rally) and classic regularity races, for 2019 the club decided to onboard a new adventure in the form of an Eco Rally, which also has the support of IBIL (electric charging services provider, leader company in Spain), DS Automobiles (double Formula E World Champion with DS Techeetah) and EVE (Basque Energy Entity, which promotes the use of alternative energy to reduce pollution caused by transport).
All of them have presented today the competition in Bilbao, in an act that has had the participation of Alfonso Gil, Deputy Mayor and Councilor for Mobility and Sustainability of the Bilbao City Council; Asier Madariaga, President of the Eco Rallye Organizing Committee; Martín Cubillo, General Secretary of Real Peña Motorista de Vizcaya; Manu Núñez, Director of Petronor Innovation; Enrique Monasterio, Director of Development and Innovation of the EVE; Aitor Arzuaga, General Director of IBIL, and Ignacio García, Manager of DS Automobiles.
The event was born with the aim of organizing the most ambitious event in history, being the world's first eco rally to use ultra-fast recharge facilities (recently inaugurated 1 MW recharging service enabled by IBIL, within Petronor Service Station), with remote recharge management and monitoring, and introducing an extra long single-day stage to show the autonomies of vehicles currently available to the public.
All competitors will have to complete a total of nearly 650 kilometers, along three stages that will start and end in the center of the City of Bilbao, where the people who wish may come there to see the departures and arrivals of vehicles, and to enjoy the various activities that will be organized near the parc ferme, such as the exhibition of the current Formula E world champion DS Techeetah, an electric Karting for children or a professional Scalextric circuit, among others.