Yorkshireman Ian Warhurst, Bloodhound LSR CEO, this week received a prestigious Top Gear ‘Man of the Year’ award at a ceremony in London. The award was given in recognition of his rescue of the Bloodhound Land Speed Record car and the successful completion of high speed testing which saw the team reach a staggering 628 mph / 1,010 km/h.
Ian was joined by prize winners from Porsche, Bentley, Renault and Tesla as Top Gear recognised the usual best in class. Ian and driver Andy Green were ushered up on stage and grilled during a Q&A, receiving applause from the automotive industry leaders for their endeavours in the Kalahari Desert earlier this year.
Bloodhound LSR owner Ian Warhurst said: “What an honour to be recognised by the BBC Top Gear team. There had been too much world class engineering invested into Bloodhound over the years and the car was too special to see it cut up for scrap when the previous project came to an end. Now we’ve run it and demonstrated to the world just what it’s capable of, we’re seeking sponsors to help us move to the next phase and break some records!”
From left to right: Charlie Turner (Editor-in-Chief, BBC Top Gear), Ollie Marriage (Motoring Editor, BBC Top Gear), Ian Warhurst (Bloodhound LSR CEO) and Andy Green (Bloodhound LSR driver).
Next steps
Even though the high speed testing was a resounding success, now the real work begins.
The team is turning its attention to raising the vital budget necessary to move into the final phase of the programme: attempting a new world land speed record in 12 – 18 months’ time, back in South Africa.
The Bloodhound LSR car is currently in a shipping container, heading back to the UK by sea. When it arrives in early January, it’ll be returned to the workshop in the heart of SGS Berkeley Green University Technical College, Gloucestershire, where it’ll be reassembled into desert spec configuration.
In order to set a new world land speed record, the Bloodhound LSR team needs to fit a rocket on the car. Norwegian aerospace expert Nammo is developing a monopropellant rocket as part of the European Space Agency R&D programme, which will be the perfect fit for the Bloodhound LSR car, slotting easily into the vacant tunnel beneath the EJ200 jet engine.
The new rocket will use concentrated hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) which, when passed through a catalyst, decomposes into H2O and oxygen, whilst generating the several tonnes of thrust needed to blast Bloodhound LSR into the record books.
