Fuel

When Prince Borghese undertook the original Peking to Paris Race in 1907 he arranged for fuel dumps to be established along the route.  In some cases the fuel didn't show up but he was surprisingly resourceful in finding substitutes such as Benzine, which seemed to work well enough.

Fuels is still a problem in Mongolia where the rally organisers have organised a fuel tanker to follow the race and we have pre-purchased our fuel (£1,400 pounds worth) to get across the Gobi Desert.

Fuel quality in Mongolia is a problem. We have a funnel to filter fuel going into our tanks, three in-line filters after the tank and a final clear glass filter just before the carburettor. We've been told to expect problems even with this level of filtration.

We have two separate fuel tanks so that if we get a batch of dirty fuel we can switch to the second tank. Together these hold 100 litres of fuel and we get 7 km/litre giving us a 700 km range - which is more than a day's rallying. However consumption will drop if the going is hard and we have a spare petrol can in the boot.

Our fuel tanks are aluminium rather than carbon fibre.  The advantage being that aluminium is much easier to repair if we get a leak.  We've also fitted a chain to the fuel filler cap so the we can't drive off and leave it behind - a common rally occurrence.