New Bentley Continental GT3 Pikes Peak racer packs over 750bhp

Bentley is readying itself for a operate up the Pikes Peak Intercontinental Hillclimb afterwards this thirty day period, with a specially modified edition of its Continental GT3 racer made to operate on artificial gas, and has verified some of the technical specs for its new challenger. 

The Continental GT3 Pikes Peak for 2021 is run by a specially tuned edition of its twin-turbocharged four.-litre V8 engine, which has a greater compression ratio, a more powerful carbon fibre inlet manifold, one-off titanium exhaust manifolds and bigger turbos to generate additional raise.

The end result is “more than 750bhp” and an tremendous 1,000Nm of torque – and Bentley states it plans to switch up the wick even additional for the event. The use of renewable artificial gas has the prospective to slash the car’s greenhouse gasoline emissions by up to eighty five percent, promises the manufacturer. 

The Continental GT3 Pikes Peak is based on a intensely modified edition of the road car’s chassis. Aside from the new race livery, the most evident upgrade is the aerodynamic offer, which has been oversized to cope with the thinner air (and therefore significantly less downforce) obtainable close to the prime of the fourteen,000 ft-higher Pikes Peak program. 

The enormous rear wing is complemented by a two-plane front splitter, a enormous rear diffuser and all method of vents and channels made to suck turbulent air front beneath the car. The rear home windows have also been ditched in favour of vents, which interesting a secondary radiator mounted in the boot.

In all, the aero tweaks have enhanced the car’s downforce by thirty percent at sea level, which about correlates to the 33 percent aerodynamic decline the GT will put up with at the prime of Pikes Peak, due to the reduced air density.

Due to the special nature of the Pikes Peak program, Bentley has overhauled the car’s chassis, much too. In contrast to the GT3 keep track of racer, the hillclimb car has drastically significantly less front and rear camber, when the dampers and anti-roll bars have been softened to allow for the chassis to cope with the rougher tarmac. The brakes are also now h2o-cooled.

The Continental GT3 Pikes Peak will enter the Time Attack 1 event on 27 June, which is a class made for production-based racing equipment. Bentley aims to rating a hat-trick with its new racer, hoping to get residence a new trophy to sit together with its present-day documents for the fastest production car and SUV to tackle the twelve.forty two-mile program.

In 2018, the manufacturer claimed an unofficial history for the fastest production SUV up the climb with the Bentayga. Then, the subsequent calendar year, the Continental GT took the history in the Time Attack 2 class for production autos – a feat the manufacturer marked with a Pikes Peak unique edition edition of its grand tourer that had a production operate of just 15 units.

Bentley has dedicated to becoming a totally electric manufacturer by 2030, as portion of its Beyond100 system. But the company will nonetheless generate combustion engined autos for the subsequent nine several years. 

The manufacturer also states that additional than eighty percent of all Bentleys at any time developed are nonetheless on the road, and the racer’s use of biofuel signals a broader want by the company to be certain its present-day and potential combustion engine consumers can continue to love their vehicles very long immediately after the manufacturer would make the switch.

Bentley engineering boss Matthias Rabe said: “We are delighted to be returning to Pikes Peak for a 3rd time – now run by renewable gas, as the launch job for yet another new component of our Beyond100 programme. 

“Our powertrain engineers are previously researching both biofuels and e-fuels for use by our consumers together with our electrification programme – with intermediate measures of adopting renewable fuels at the manufacturing unit in Crewe and for our company fleet.”

Check out the best keep track of day autos you can buy listed here…