Carlin already associated with NZ supercar aspirant

RODIN Cars, the New Zealand-domiciled fabricator of a high-end single seater race car for circuit play and intending maker of a supercar, has bought into a top British racing team.

Announcement came today that the Kiwi business, the baby of wealthy Australian tech developer David Dicker, is now the majority shareholder of UK-based Carlin Motorsport.

The racing team, now known as Rodin Carlin, has been a force in junior motorsport since its inception. The structure bought into by Dicker dates back to 1999 and has been run by Trevor and Stephanie Carlin, who will continue to lead the racing team.

There was already a link – last year Rodin Cars sponsored Carlin F2 and F4 race winners, young Kiwis Liam Lawson and Louis Sharp.

Carlin has also had programmes in F4, F3, F2, Indy Lights, INDYCAR, ELMS and Asian Le Man Series. It has cumulatively claimed more than 470 race victories, 30 championship titles and helped promote more than 30 drivers to F1, including Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg and Robert Kubica.

Dicker says Carlin Motorsport and Rodin Cars share the same passion for fast race cars.

“Trevor Carlin and I have an obsession with performance and competition that will cement the place of the new Rodin Carlin team at the front in the coming seasons.

“We’ve been really impressed during the past season with Carlin and the success Liam and Louis have enjoyed. We have seen first-hand what the team can achieve, and we’re excited about building on this incredible platform,” says Dicker.

He hopes Rodin Carlin will provide more opportunities for young Kiwi drivers to work their way up to the top level.

Trevor Carlin says the investment will boost the British team’s performance ambitions on track and further strengthen the company's business foundations. Rodin Carlin will expand in 2023 to incorporate F1 Academy and Spanish F4.

It is not known if the buy-in will be useful to Rodin’s current car development programme, which presently focuses on the FZED, a single seater-style performance model, originally based off a still-born Lotus project and also designed just for track play, and the FZERO, a closed cockpit Batmobile-style track car. Rodin has announced intent to produce five FZEDs and 27 FZERO. The latter has been variously described as a hypercar and a supercar.

Images seen today are those provided when the car was announced last year and are a mix of renders and pictures of a diecast model.

The FZERO is being touted as a 894kW, sub-700 kilogram model that is described as being free from “restrictions of road laws and race series regulations’ – translation, it doesn’t meet structural and safety requirement for road use and likely cannot be raced in any specific category.

The engine is a twin-turbo 4.0-litre V10 which redlines at 10,000rpm with a hybrid aspect. It has been developed by Rodin and engine manufacturer Neil Brown Engineering, a British company that has been designing, manufacturing and supporting race winning competition engines for over 40 years in British and German touring cars and F3.

Rodin cited an output from the engine of 735kW and 910Nm, but says the addition of the 130kW hybrid power raises this to 865kW and 1026Nm. Either way, it’s a lot of oomph for a car weighing just 698kg.

Rodin established in 2016 and operates from Mt Lyford, in North Canterbury; its facility including a private racetrack.