Valiant

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Valiant logo

Valiant is the brand name of engines developed by ACR Zakspeed (formerly Vod:Bul Motorsport). The brand was launched at the beginning of the 2015 season after winning a binning process announced by the league in mid January. Valiant took the place of the now-defunct Krevder engine line.

The first engine to be produced was named the 'Valiant VA15' and, together with Vod:Bul Racing, powers Red Archer, Green Stripes and newcomers Edonis Engineering for the 2015 season.

Despite new rules limiting the contribution customer teams make towards engine development, the Valiant has had a highly successful first year so far. As of the 2015 Brazilian Grand Prix, a Valiant-powered car has won seven grands prix; six for Vod:Bul and one for Red Archer.

Valiant's strong debut season encouraged all of the manufacturer's 2015 customers to continue using Valiant engines in the 2016 season. Furthermore, three additional teams (Hawkeye, Nijo and Storm) opted to use Valiant engines, resulting in Valiant supplying seven teams in the 2016 sesson - over half of the grid.

2017 saw quite a change in the Valiant line-up. Nijo withdrew from the series, Green Stripes went to Trinity while Hawkeye formed its own engine brand, Talos, and took Edonis with them. Nonetheless, three new teams joined; Kernow Sport, which was the only Superleague veterans to sign up, were joined by the two promoted teams. MadCape and Streetfighter. Despite having one less customer than previously, Valiant's dominance of the market remained; Valiant in 2017 was be the only engine to supply more than two teams, and still account for half of the field.

2018 saw Valiant's customer list drastically reduce as Valiant failed to retain any of their 2017 customers: Kernow left the championship and Red Archer, Storm, MadCape and Streetfighter all defected to Martex. Valiant did, however, supply two 1st-year teams: Evolution Motorsports and EVAL Simracing Team and formed a very close working relationship with the former. This was aso the year in which the Vod:Bul name became no more, as they rebranded as ACR Zakspeed before the beginning of the season.

The 2019 season saw Valiant's popularity once again skyrocket despite EVAL leaving the champonsip, as previous customers Red Archer, Streetfighter and Green Stripes chose Valiant once again, and Valiant secured 3 new customers in the form of sophomore teams Epic Racing and Flag-to-Flag SimRacing and debutants Scuderia Basilea. Additionally, Valiant retained Evolution as a customer, bringing the total number of customer teams to 7 (plus ACR Zakspeed itself) - over half of the grid.

Engine deals

Team Season(s) Total Wins First Win Last Win
England Vod:Bul/ACR Zakspeed 2015Present 36 2015 Portuguese Grand Prix 2018 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Netherlands Edonis 20152016 5 2016 Russian Grand Prix 2016 Mexican Grand Prix
Greece Red Archer 20152017, 2019 5 2015 Turkish Grand Prix 2019 Italian Grand Prix
Germany Green Stripes 20152016, 2019 1 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix
Romania Storm 20162017 1 2016 British Grand Prix 2016 British Grand Prix
England Hawkeye 2016 0 - -
England Nijo 2016 0 - -
England Kernow 2017 0 - -
South Africa MadCape 2017 0 - -
Australia Streetfighter 2017, 20192019 0 - -
Germany Evolution 20182019 7 2018 Italian Grand Prix 2019 Japanese Grand Prix
Estonia EVAL 2018 0 - -
England Epic 2019 0 - -
Netherlands Flag-to-Flag 2019 0 - -
Switzerland
Basilea
2019 0 - -
Total 2015Present 55 2015 Portuguese Grand Prix 2020 Canadian Grand Prix

Bold represents current deal.

Formula Challenge

As a result of an agreement between the league and VBMotorsports, Valiant also produces all the engines for the 2015 Formula Challenge season.

See also