At the the end of last season there was a rumour that I picked up suggesting that Williams was negotiating with Porsche. I could not stack it up and so I wrote a very general story about Porsche and Formula 1, just in case. It now seems that there were serious contacts going on but not apparently relating to Formula 1 (although, who knows where this might lead?). The Grove team has just announced a deal between Williams Hybrid Power Ltd and Porsche AG regarding the flywheel system that is to be used on the new Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid, which was announced today (below).

The system was originally developed for use in F1 by Williams but the focus is now on applying on the technology to road cars. The technology will also be developed for larger, infrastructure applications by Williams F1 at its new research facility in the Qatar Science and Technology Park.

“This is a milestone for both Williams Hybrid Power (WHP) and Williams F1,” says the team’s COO Alex Burns, who is also chairman of Williams Hybrid Power. “Together we have worked to bring this technology forward to the point where it can be tested in a racing car and deployed in a road car. We hope that this will be just the start of the evolution of hybrid systems developed for Formula 1 moving across to applications where they can contribute to cleaner and more powerful vehicles.”

The Williams system is patented and features an electromechanical composite flywheel system that provides a high-power, cost-effective and environmentally friendly solution for mobile or stationary energy storage and recovery. In November, WHP announced its involvement in a mild hybrid road car programme with Ricardo, CTG, JCB, Jaguar Land Rover, SKF and Torotrak. The project aims to demonstrate the potential of flywheel-based hybrid systems with the potential for 30 per cent fuel savings (and equivalent reductions in CO2 emissions) at an on-cost of less than £1000, to enable mass-market uptake of hybrid vehicles in price sensitive vehicle applications.