Hill got a taste of motorsport’s potential future at Daytona’s Sandown circuit, when he became the first person to drive a kart powered by fully synthetic fuel, produced by former F1 technical chief Paddy Lowe’s company Zero.
The carbon neutral fuel, which Zero makes from air and water using renewable energy, can be dropped directly into any engine. Once available at fossil-comparable prices – which Lowe predicts will be within a decade – it could help neutralise emissions throughout motorsport.
Speaking after the run, Hill said: “I think everyone is struggling with every brain cell they have to try to solve the problem of how we become sustainable and still produce the performance that people want.
“Motorsport is about high-performance vehicles and the entertainment side is key. It is a real technical challenge and what I see as increasingly a problem is the size and weight of the cars – in F1 particularly – in their attempts to be as green as possible.
“They are very efficient but they are huge and heavy and that impacts on the nimbleness of the car. It brings us back to the question of whether the practicalities of pursuing all-electric or even hybrid vehicles in this type of competition is a genuine direction.”
Hill was not the first to try Lowe’s synthetic fuel – it has already achieved a Guinness World Record for the first flight with synthetic fuel, was used in two supercars on Top Gear and fuelled the Duke of Richmond’s motorbike at Goodwood.
Source: Autosport