We were recently invited by Proton to take a ride in the Satria Neo S2000 rally car and to interview the teams two drivers – Chris Atkinson and Alister McRae, the duo are considered as the strongest pairing for the APRC season for 2010. Heeding the call to attend the event, I was also scheduled for another photoshoot at the same time but there was absolutely no way I was going to give up an opportunity to take a ride in Proton’s most extreme rally car to date. So I skipped the interview but pulled on a helmet for a ride and the video after the jump is from the adrenalin pumped 5-minutes that I got to spend pretending to be a rally co-driver.
After a few minutes of waiting, my turn finally arrived and this was going to be my first time in a professional competition spec rally car, but getting in is not easy, after you twist and turn your body around the roll-cage, you have to position yourself just right and drop into the ultra-low slung FIA spec full bucket seats, do it wrong and it’s going to be one very uncomfortable ride because trust me, you’re in for one hell of a ride and “kahuna comfort” is essential. The first thing you notice is how low you are actually sitting because your line of visibility sits right at the edge where the dash meets the windscreen, me in my excitement questioned Chris Atkinson about this and the answer was pretty embarrassingly obvious, “because in a race you want to see 100 meters in front of you, not what’s right ahead of the car.”
The next thing you notice is the presence of three buttons right at your feet, from the left the first button is the horn, then its wash button to clean the windscreen then its the trip button, I did question the use of this button but all I heard was the sound of the 2.0-liter Waja derived engine screaming to put down its 278horses on gravel, Chris’s explanation was hardly audible, but with the engine screaming at a glorious 7000rpm, I wasn’t exactly paying attention.
Then there’s the ride itself. See I’m a track junkie, I look for apex’s, vanishing point, braking points, and I stay away from the dirty side of the track, a little of everything from quite a few “driving for idiots” books. But in rallying, all these points are embedded into a driver’s head and his reflexes to taken on these points are promptly activated by the co-drivers notes and heads up. It was quite hard to guess when Chris was going to turn as there were countless trees lining up on either sides scarily close to each other so it was more a matter of choosing a tree to turn around but that’s not quite it in a race situation because everything is marked, but apparently the drivers see quite clearly which trees are marked but for me all I saw was a potentially very painful tree. There certainly was new found respect for rally drivers, co-drivers and the team.
The ride consisted of two rounds around the short gravel track in Sepang and two rounds may seem like a lot but when you’re holding your breath and trying to register the synergy between the driver, car and track, it’s almost a surreal experience where everything just darts past you and the only thing that you are able to capture is the sound, the speed, and the feedback of the car. The Satria Neo is something that I have driven a lot, but the Satria Neo S2000 is a completely different animal and shares almost nothing in common but the design of the headlights and some curvature. If there ever is a perfect Proton for me, the S2000 is it, pity it’s a rally car that costs slightly above the RM1million mark and will never feel the hands of a regular driver and the tarmac of a regular road but with the right amount of noise from fans, who knows? Read on below for official information on the Satria Neo S2000 rally car.
Making Strides on and off the track
Famously known as Proton’s sportiest product to date, the Satria Neo won an award for its sleek and sporty design. Likewise, the Satria Neo has been successful in domestic racing, as well as regionally; having triumphed in it’s class at the Merdeka Millenium Endurance Race 2008. It also secured the Championships for both Driver and Team in the 2008 AFOS ATCS1500Max Championship. At the 2009 Intercontinental Rally Challenge, the Proton Satria Neo S2000 achieved a 4th overall finish in the Rally of Russia, and it’s best result to date, a 2nd overall in the Rally of Scotland.
The new Proton Satria Neo Super 2000 rally car raises performance bar for the rapidly expanding FIA Super 200 rally series. Based on the Proton Satria Neo, the MEM Proton Super 2000 Rally Car has been constructed by MEM to conform with the latest FIA homologation specifications. The car can be supplied to either tarmac or gravel specification as required.
Proton partner Mellors Elliot Motorsport (MEM), has designed the new Proton Satria Neo Super 2000 rally car has just raised the performance bar for the rapidly expanding FIA Super 2000 rally series.
The concept was developed by using a combination of innovative engineering designs, the 25 years of experience of the teams technical staff but, crucially, also the input from the teams owner and extremely successful driver, Chris Mellors. The result is an astonishingly small and agile car which from the very outset was designed for the driver.
With an attractive and aerodynamic package for the front bumper, wings, rear bumper and rear spoiler complimenting the eye-catching Satria design, the Proton S2000 can achieve in full rally trim the smallest frontal area and the lowest roof height in its class even at rally ride height settings. Driver and Co-driver seat positions are fixed at the rearmost possible mounting points to maximize the car’s weight distribution but with the pedal box and steering column both adjustable to suit different pilots. The rollcage design uses 35 metres of lightweight Chrome Moly tube together with strategic body strengthening resulting in vastly improved torsional bodyshell stiffness and a no-compromise safety cell for the crew. The cleverly designed side crash protection bars are uniquely shaped to aid driver and co-driver access into and out of the car.
The 2-litre Proton Super 2000 engine is derived from the 1. 8 litre engine fitted to Proton’s Waja model and has been further developed by MEM’s engineers to produce a reliable 278 bhp @ 7600 rpm with a usable power band from 5,500 to 8,500 rpm. Combined with the best 6-speed sequential 4WD Super 2000 transmission currently available, (the “532” version from the market leaders Xtrac ) the car sets new standards for engine performance and driveability.
The fuel system innovates too with a quick-change fuel control cassette, (which include all the fuel pumps, filters and valves), attached to the MEM-designed FIA FT3 safety fuel cell to aid rapid maintenance.
Alcon provides the braking power with their latest Super 2000 alloy 4-pot calipers and ventilated discs which combined with the Neo’s low overall weight of 1150kg gives astoundingly short braking distances. The ventilated disc size are independently maximized for both Gravel, (15” rims), and Tarmac, (18” rims), but for both simplicity and cost the brake calipers are common to both setups thanks to a simple mounting arrangement.
Engineers have designed the suspension with a relatively conventional layout of the wishbone and MacPherson strut, which means it will be easy and relatively cheap to maintain whilst remaining super-reliable. However, the design has cleverly maximized the damper travel to such an extent that the bump stops are the only part that stops the body sills hitting the ground on full bump travel! This translates into achieving both an ultra-low tarmac setup with go-kart levels of body roll and a long-travel gravel setup with enormous ability to soak up the biggest bumps. With various anti-roll bars available for both front and rear and with MEM’s 25 years of rally experience, the suspension setup can be easily fine-tuned for any surface or type.
The latest technology is used in the electrical systems with a state of the art Multiplexed wiring system capable of managing the entire car’s electronics from a central unit ideally placed in the centre of the car in-between the driver and co-driver. Apart from the weight saving reduction that this achieves, it is simple to operate and, with automatically resetting circuit breakers, this is technology and reliability at its best.
The result of all this is a car which not only has well-proven technical advances and novel design but also has simplicity where appropriate to ensure the best possible combination of performance and reliability.
