Thursday, Dec 16, 2021 • 25min

Off-road racing’s clean energy revolution: Cyril Despres

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Cyril Despres represents the past, present and future of the Dakar Rally. His rally-raid story traverses desert dunes in Africa, South America and Saudi Arabia. Despres has won five times on a bike and parked a car on the podium. Now his hydrogen-powered vehicle represents the Frenchman’s most daring Dakar ambition to date. Find out what inspires Despres to keep going the extra mile. Make sure you follow the 2022 Dakar Rally by tuning in to ‘Dakar Daily’ on Red Bull TV in January (redbull.com/dakar), or if you can’t wait until then, check out the latest Dakar series From Dawn Till Dust, also available on Red Bull TV, to learn everything you need to know about the event (https://win.gs/dawntilldust) https://win.gs/dawntilldust) Make sure you hit follow to be the first to hear the latest episodes. Discover more about Beyond the Ordinary at redbull.com/beyondtheordinary.

Talking about

Speakers

(6)

Caroline De Moraes

Cyril Despres

Taye Perry

Transcript

Verified

Caroline De Moraes

00:07

Cyril Despres

is one of

Dakar's

icons With over 20 years experience in the dunes alongside his great rival

Marc Coma

Day Parade dominated the two wheel category for a decade, winning five times and securing 10 podiums before making the move to four wheels in 2015, earning his first podium finish in 2017.

Marc Coma

00:38

He's like always motivated, it's like the challenge, makes him happy.

Taye Perry

00:43

He was a legend and he's done so much during his career. We all looked up to him.

00:48

An ambassador, a god that knows what he wants and normally gets what he wants.

00:53

Winning one

Dakar

is difficult to win five is pretty incredible.

Caroline De Moraes

00:56

And now he's planning his most radical change yet with his goal to race at

Dakar

2023 in a hydrogen powered Gen-Z racing car,

Despres

is entering the 2022 edition on a data gathering mission for the project.

Cyril Despres

01:17

You know, I, I really like the spirit of the race and I don't want to be an exception. I want to start in the same place and finishing in the same place with the same vehicle. Is it possible to have a zero emission vehicle today? I say yes, can we have a really competitive vehicle today? I say yes, when I hope in 23 I'm really pushing a lot for that,

Caroline De Moraes

01:48

I'm Caroline De Moraes and on this episode of beyond the ordinary, we are going to explore the impact rally racer.

Cyril Despres

has had on the

Dakar

one of the toughest races in motorsport and we're going to discover what drives him to continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible after so many years at the forefront of the event.

02:15

If you're new to the

Dakar

then be sure to check out our guide to episode from season one. It's linked in the description of this episode and remember if you like what you hear, be sure to follow beyond the ordinary wherever you get your podcasts, whatever is powering a car at the

Dakar

, the driver needs to be in peak physical and mental shape.

Joel Laborde

02:44

My name is Joel Laborde, I am the coach performance for

Cyril

Despres, I still have a problem with his back like more than 10, 10 years ago we started training together to fix that problem and then we start to, to train for the doctor And then there was this history, he wanted Docker another one, another one, another 1-5. Well, the thing he was serious, she is very disciplined, he's very focused when he's doing something. So working with him is very easy.

Cyril Despres

03:16

Training starts at 6:40 this morning. I used to take part of, of the

Dakar

on the motorcycle during 14 years and I knew the exact details the amount of training on a motorcycle, on the gym, on a bicycle, also to get some strong legs doing a lot of gym for the arms and also the upper body but on the car is, is different, you are fixed on a, on a seat, your neck is working a lot. Your arms stay like 8 hours in front of you. That means there's a different exercise to get ready for the car. It's something different. But after 6

Dakar

on the car now I know where to go.

Caroline De Moraes

04:05

Trainer Joel Laborde has been a central part of Team

Despres

since he first worked with

Cyril

in 2008. He's been a key part of his transition from two wheels to four including designing a program for him to address the unique mental challenges of the

Dakar

Joel Laborde

04:24

So we've been developed train system for the

Dakar

for everything that you can imagine besides the physical training, the cognitive training, the ear, the internal ear. And when you have somebody talking to you by your side, you have to have a real understanding.

Cyril Despres

04:42

When we meet on the gym, you just adapt the training or where we are. Do we need two more stretching. Do we need to work in a different aspect. This morning was a connective training to train your brain to recognize the color, to hear some songs and to act with some balls or

Ping Pong

racket going on. Gym is not taking like 40 kg of weight and pushing until the sweat is coming.

Caroline De Moraes

05:15

Mastering the art of navigation is one of the unique challenges of the sport of rally raid. When

Cyril

was the king of two wheels he managed this himself. Now in a car he relies entirely on his co-driver for vital instructions to make sure his path across the dunes is quick and safe.

Cyril Despres

05:35

It takes a while for me to don't have a look with my eyes on his road book or if I do not understand the next box of the road book and the next direction I was trying to see and I realized that I may keep my eyes on the road, you know, when this vehicular crossing the desert in a high speed is better to watch and to stay focused on the track.

Stéphane Peterhansel

06:03

I am

Stéphane Peterhansel

. I am a professional rider and driver since 40 years. Now I am a driver for the next

Dakar

for the team

Audi

the most important thing is to trust on the car driver because you know if you want to drive fast, you need to have a co-driver that you trust. If you did too much mistake like forget cushion three, big cushion for example, you you will crash. So this is for me the most important thing to be really precise when they announced the cushion. It's really important also to have a good driver concerning the pure navigation. It means that to find a good way to follow the cap it is also important. And after yet to have a simple on the good relationship inside the cockpit it's really really important

Caroline De Moraes

06:52

For 2022 he won't have the familiar voice of explorer

Mike Horn

in the seat next to him. Instead,

Cyril's

co driver will sound very different.

Taye Perry

07:03

I'm Taye Perry, I'm co-pilot for

Cyril

Despres at 2022

Dakar

. So it's, it's, it's been a big change. We're kind of working on our dialogue in the car. I'm not using a 100% English for example, say like if I'd say "500 danger keep left" with several, I won't be using certain words. For example, fork in French fork sounds too much like four and, you know, especially for someone whose first language is not, not English, I have to be a lot more precise and a lot more clear. I also have to change my tone a bit because is more reactive to, to the way notes are called.

Caroline De Moraes

07:41

For most the prospect of racing across inhospitable and unfamiliar territory at high speed, taking direction in your second language would definitely be something to fear.

Cyril

relishes in the challenge.

Cyril Despres

07:56

I always say that to be fast in the desert, you don't need only to be fast. You have to manage a multi task. English is a little task more to accept and to try to make it correctly and as fast as you can to get the details to get the information and to act. This is partner of the adventure of

Dakar

Caroline De Moraes

08:21

Cyril's

willingness to try the impossible in the pursuit of success was clear from his first involvement with the race. Back in 1999 before he was a multi time

Dakar

winner. He was a mechanic. Working in Paris,

Cyril's

inventiveness, uncovered a unique path onto the start line.

Cyril Despres

08:40

I wanted to take part of the

Dakar

. It was a dream, but when you are a mechanic and you you earn €1500 per month, it's not easy to find the money to go to

Dakar

. When we decide to with a friend to go to the

Dakar

as amateurs rider, we bought 6000 bottles of wine, cheap, not a really good wine, but a French wine and then we put a sticker on the bottle to say, please help us to make our dream came true. If we sell all these box we will reach this €30,000 we need. This was the most difficult time for for me because I'm not a seller, I'm not really good for selling anything. But I managed. I asked my uncle, my grandma, my grandfather, my neighbor, the neighbor of my neighbor and the neighbor of my hunt and we manage.

Caroline De Moraes

09:45

Nowadays with the advent of social media cereal feels the world offers more opportunities for young drivers to find funding provided they're willing to put their creativity to the test.

Cyril Despres

09:58

Today with the social network, you don't have to move yourself. I mean, you can send the story, you can just explain what you want to do with what is your, your dream, your project. Somebody creative today can reach 100 time more people that I was in my Christmas market of my 5000 people living in my little village.

Caroline De Moraes

10:29

A mainstay in the sport for over two decades,

Cyril

relationship with rival

Marc Coma

is one of the most competitive in world sport. Between them they won 10 consecutive

Dakar

rallies between 2005 and 2015.

Marc Coma

is no longer competing in the

Dakar

, but a decade of elite competition shaped the way

Cyril

approaches the race.

Cyril Despres

10:53

You know, during 10 years, 12 years I realised that the guy which is looking like me the most is not my brother or my father. It was

Marc Coma

. He was training hard and I was trying to, to train hard. He was going fast and I was trying to go fast. I mean we had the same wishes and, at the end, there were one seat only. It's crazy to imagine that during 10 years nobody have won the

Dakar

on a motorcycle, except him or me. A victory in front of

Marc

it was really a victory. I mean, he never give up and never give it easy.

Marc Coma

11:42

I'm

Marc Coma

. I'm from

Spain

. I'm 5 times

Dakar

winner. Well, I think that between

Cyril

and me is... we are part of the

Dakar

history, you know. The relation between two winners in the big races like that is sometimes it's not easy, but it is part of the game, for sure. He was my motivation, you know, and he was the reason why I want to be better every day, you know, during all the year, during all the preparation of

Dakar

, always, you know, going deep to find what, where I can be better, where I have to work. This was clear that I was his motivation and he was my motivation.

Taye Perry

12:29

I'm Taye Perry. Back in the day when

Cyril

was dominating and he won five Dakars and I used to look at those days as pure racing days were longer, the racing was long, it wasn't just 12 days of racing, it was a lot lot longer, heavier machinery, they had their work cut out for them.

Caroline De Moraes

12:48

For

Cyril

racing against

Marc Coma

in a golden era of the race emphasized the importance of

Dakar's

spirit particularly against their mutual enemy, the

Dakar

route.

Cyril Despres

13:00

I realized quite soon that

Dakar

race, it's a big event, it's something that I'm really looking for every year, but in the meantime it can be, can be dangerous, you know. Mark and myself, we have lost a couple of friends,

Richard Sainct

Andy Caldecott

and

Fabrizio Meoni

, my teammate.

Stéphane Peterhansel

13:25

I am Stéphane Peterhansel, I did ten

Dakar

with the bike, but I never crashed, I never had a big crash, I never had big injuries. So I said maybe this is the time, but I saw a lot of accidents just in front of me, one of my best friends died just in front of me. So I said, maybe it's time to change.

Cyril Despres

13:47

You wanna win, I wanna win, but I need to race against the desert, respecting the desert and trying to face him like the most strongest competitor. Theyears, which I did not make the mistake, I win and yes, which I did some mistake I did not. I have done 14

Dakar

on a motorcycle. I've been winning five times, but I was there on the podium 11 times. I mean I was closed, nothing was missing. It's, it's just not a question of luck is just the question of I am prepared physically. I have a good team, sometimes it works and sometimes not, but I, I always did my, my best.

Caroline De Moraes

14:39

During

Cyril's

time at the

Dakar

, he's ridden bikes and cars with wildly different power sources from 400 cc

Honda

bikes to three liter Peugeot cars, now he's planning a new challenge at

Dakar

that won't require an engine at all.

14:56

In 2023

Cyril

hopes to attack the

Dakar

rally in a generation Z hydrogen powered car and part of that motivation boils down to his own generation-Zs of his two daughters who inspired the idea.

Cyril Despres

15:11

I have a daughter of eight years old and 11 years old and and one day they were asking why I do motorsports and then I said, because I love the speed, I love to ride. I love to drive. And then, and then they say, but you know these smokes it's smelling. And he said, yes, we are trying year after year to reduce, but soon the car will not make any smoke. And he said: "And you will drive this car?". It came in my mind to say, look, do we, I need to wait for somebody to to show me the way to compete on the future or can I be just one of the guys which help for the future of the motorsport? And I said, I'm not, I'm not stupid. I love the technical, I love the mechanic. I can start to understand and see what's going on, which direction electricity, hybrid or maybe hydrogen. And then in the meantime, this friend

Mike Horn

an adventurer, which was just finishing to cross the The North Pole by night. I said, that's a fantastic project and he wanted to be in. And this is where it starts.

Caroline De Moraes

16:35

The experts from

CEA

, an energy research group backed by the French government immediately took an interest in

Cyril's

fledgling project.

Cyril Despres

16:44

Your project looks interesting because if we can make a fuel cell without contamination without emission, which can go racing, which can go on a desert with all it means, it's hot, it's warm, it's sandy, it's windy, it's hard for the mechanic. And if we developed a fuel cell which can show we can raise a competition like

Dakar

one of the strongest with a new kind of vehicle, this control the world that yeah, maybe in five years we are ready with the same fun, same speed, same talk, same power. We now know that how powerful is the fuel cell Gen-Z. Let's go.

Caroline De Moraes

17:35

This cutting edge technology is nearly ready to take on the

Dakar

. But how does it work?

Cyril Despres

17:42

The guard is going into a box which called fuel cell and we put some air from the outside of the car. We mix it to make electrolysis and it produce electricity. The electricity goes to a small battery and the battery goes to the engine, electric engine and the car go fast.

Caroline De Moraes

18:02

Cyril's

revolutionary new power source was inspired by the next generation and a recent trip to his daughter's school confirmed that he was on the right path.

Cyril Despres

18:11

It was a small classroom. There were 6-7 different countries represented on his classroom, some English from Russian, some Spanish, French on the run. And I realised that during an hour we keep the interest from the kids and they were non-stop asking questions and they were amazed, you know, and I realised that it's, it's a bet it's definitely a bet for the future. Do we need fuel cell, do we need hydrogen into the motorsport? I think so personally. And I'm working on that direction.

Caroline De Moraes

18:49

And the next step in that direction is the 2020 to

Dakar

. As in 2021,

Cyril

will line up on the start line with a car featuring components from the 2023 hydrogen powered machine. As he and his team tried to gather data for their groundbreaking new car.

Cyril Despres

19:06

2021, we had a lot of data concerning the speed, the shock, the impact of the car, the temperature and some of the electrical conception: the lights, the navigation, the inflation system. And then from that, this French a company called

CEA

they are developing the future of sustainable energy vehicle and then they realise that it's already great and they plan to use some components to compress the air to transform the electricity for the car. There's plenty component on this hydrogen car. This car for 22, it will still have a combustion engine, we have to say. This is the part of the development, this is the part, this is where we want to go. But we need to go through this step and we will measure a bit more the quantity of electricity we need.

Caroline De Moraes

20:12

And the electricity for a hydrogen powered car is nothing like the electricity you find in the battery of your internal combustion engine. As

Cyril

explains.

Cyril Despres

20:21

Just to give you an idea. Our car, your car, my car is a 12 volt car with a 12 volt battery. A fuel seller producing electricity, but not 12V, 700 volts. This number of voltage, this, this power, we have to transform it a part from the engine of the car and the other part for the GPS, the road books, the lights, the windscreen, heater. You can't have a better try than a race like that car. That's why all these components we, which is already, fixed on the car will, will work, will do their job and we will realise that especially because of the quality of the air with a lot of silicium inside, because of the desert, to see if they can keep going or do we need to go to another component.

Caroline De Moraes

21:21

As motorsport looks for greener ways to go racing, the obvious solution may have appeared to be traditional electric power. But for

Cyril

hydrogen power fits the ethos of racing at the

Dakar

Cyril Despres

21:33

What I really love in the

Dakar

is the endurance. The endurance means a stage of

Dakar

is is 500 kilometers, 600 kilometers a complete deck can reach 8 to 900 with the, with the liaison, the asphalt on the morning. I don't want to make a quarter of stage. I don't want to even make the half of stage. I want to make the whole stage. I want to race the whole

Dakar

not the half

Dakar

. The hydrogen have this capacity. We have 7 tanks. In 7 minutes, you are loading 30 kg of hydrogen, which last 300 km. Okay, which kind of battery can do that now? No one, It's not possible to do it. When you arrive with 300 km in the refueling point, which at the moment the quad, the bike and side by side of their refueling, the organization will put a tank not only for fuel, but for hydrogen and in the future, for the trucks or the car which they need, you don't have to to stay there four hours with your plug of electricity and to say, is there a coffee anywhere? Can I have a race because I'm good to go, but only in four hours time. No, that's, that's not

Dakar

. Sorry. You know, I really like the, the spirit of the race and I don't want to be an exception. I want to start in the same place and finishing the same place with the same vehicle. Is it possible to have a zero emission vehicle today? I say yes, can we have a really competitive vehicle today? I say yes, when I hope in 23 and I'm really pushing a lot for that.

Caroline De Moraes

23:31

Whatever happens over the next two years,

Cyril

Despres will always be one of the first names associated with the world's wildest off road race. 22 years after he sold bottles of wine to fund his place at the

Dakar

, its allure still has a strong hold on

Cyril

Cyril Despres

23:48

I feel home when I'm in the desert alone on a bike or with a co-driver. It's a, it's a place which fascinates me, how nature can make a beautiful places like that, the shape of the dunes, the color of the sand. This is just amazing. I'm not afraid to say

Dakar

gave me all.

Dakar

gave me the uh, my name.

Dakar

, gave me pleasure, trophies, gave me the possibility to discover all all the world, all the desert in the world. And when I have to see my face on the mirror, I said, can I do also something for the

Dakar

or do I always keep everything for myself and I think this is the life, this is an exchange and today I don't want to wait for somebody to build the next vehicle, you know, and I go, I don't think twice.

Caroline De Moraes

24:59

That's it for today's episode. Remember to hit follow wherever you get your podcasts and if you want to hear more about the world of

the

Dakar

Rally

, we've got another episode with fellow

Dakar

driver Cristina Gutierrez for you to listen to right now.

25:15

Make sure you follow the 2022

Dakar

rally by tuning into

Dakar

daily on

Red Bull TV

in January or if you can't wait until then check out the latest

Dakar

series "From dawn till dust" also available on

Red Bull TV

to learn everything you need to know about the event.

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Caroline De Moraes

Marc Coma

Taye Perry

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