The gradual move away from reliance on fossil fuels in motorsport is well under way. Since 2021, a steady stream of championships have jumped on the bandwagon with fully or partially sustainable fuels, with GT World Challenge Europe and Goodwood among the latest to mandate what goes into their competitors’ machines for 2024.
But with Formula 1 not set to embrace 100% renewable fuels until 2026, it’s a process that some believe needs to happen faster. Speaking at the Business Forum chaired by former F1 strategist Bernie Collins, partnership and sales manager of the World Rally Championship’s sustainable fuel supplier P1 Fuels Benjamin Cuyt was clear that grand prix racing “could have done it already”.
What he perceives as F1 “going late into this application” – although it was ranked second last week in Enovate Consulting’s sustainability championships index, topped by Formula E – weighs into a wider theme of messaging and a resultant knowledge gap.
His belief, that not enough people are aware of the encouraging progress being made to counter perceptions that motorsport enthusiasts are “just having fun burning fossil fuel”, is one shared by Richard Saxby. McLaren Applied’s motorsport director cited the example of IndyCar’s switch to run totally sustainable fuel from Shell – “hardly anyone really knows that” – and recognises that “there’s a little bit of education needed” on hydrogen too.
“The biggest problem is that people think you’re driving around in an H-bomb, that if you have an accident you’re going to wipe out the entire city,” Saxby said.
Cuyt’s concern that “we have the story wrong and we have the timing wrong” is not helped by pressures imposed by legislators to consolidate around a single technological solution, which panellists universally rejected in their outlook. After all, Formula E has very different requirements to the World Endurance Championship.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have enough engineers in our governments,” lamented Cuyt. “Everybody is putting their eggs in one basket saying it will be EV, it will be EV-only, but from a practical side, this is still technology that is in development. We should be more open-minded to all technologies.”
Source: Autosport