The original Flybrid Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) was a small and light device designed to meet the FIA regulations for the 2009 Formula One season.

The key system features were:

• A flywheel made of steel and carbon fibre that rotated at over 60,000 RPM inside an evacuated chamber
• The flywheel casing featured containment to avoid the escape of any debris in the unlikely event of a flywheel failure
• The flywheel was connected to the transmission of the car on the output side of the gearbox via several fixed ratios, a clutch and a Continuously Variable Transmission
• 60 kW power transmission in either storage or recovery
• 400 kJ of usable storage (after accounting for internal losses)
• A total system weight of 25 kg
• A total packaging volume of 13 litres

The layout of the device was tailored exactly to meet the customer's requirement resulting in a truly bespoke solution that fitted within the tight packaging constraints of a F1 car.

The original CVT based Formula One KERS