Corsa Motorsports announced the team will soon unveil its 200-m.p.h. race car with a hybrid engine. The American Le Mans Series prototype sports car, the Corsa Zytek Hybrid, built by England’s Zytek Group, will compete for the first time at Petit Le Mans at Atlanta on October 4.

Johnny Mowlem is the only person who has driven the Corsa Zytek Hybrid. He said: "For 10 seconds of braking, you get about eight seconds of (electric) power. But you don’t do all that much braking in these cars, so it will probably take three laps to build up enough power to use it.”

“We figure that the (electric) power will be worth .2 to .3 seconds per lap,” Mowlem said. “You’re not going to use it to blow by a Porsche, but it would be nice to be on a straightaway and have another 40 or 50 horsepower.”

The Zytek car’s top speed is over 200 miles per hour, has a 280-cubic-inch conventional engine and the electric motor that adds about 50 horsepower to the 625 horsepower eight-cylinder engine that runs on gasoline that is a mix of 10% ethanol and 90% gas.

Steve Pruitt, the head of Corsa Motorsport, told reporters the car uses lithium-ion batteries. When the driver brakes, the rear brakes recharge the 30-pound battery, and once the battery is charged the driver can get a brief boost from the electric motor by activating it from the steering wheel.

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