Vroom, Vroom: Formula 1 Orders Teams to Go Green
By Chuck Squatriglia, Wired Magazine
In the hypercompetitive world of Formula 1 motor racing, the only thing greater than the level of technology is the money spent developing it, and a lot of that money is about to be invested in green technology that will appear in cars the rest of us drive.
The biggest teams — Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Honda and Toyota among them — each spend $200 million or more a year on fossil-fuel technology with little real-world application. But now the sport’s ruling body has said, “Enough,” and banned further investment in F1 engines. Teams must now focus on hybrid systems and other eco-friendly means of producing power.
“For Formula 1 to do this is a big step forward,” said Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of Green Car Journal. “It will bring a lot of new technology to street cars. The old adage is, ‘Race on Sunday, sell on Monday.’”
Fuel injection, traction control and semi-automatic transmissions are just some of the innovations developed in race cars, and the racetrack will become a valuable proving ground for emerging automotive technology, experts said.
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:34 am
A very good article.
You don’t have to be a car nut or an F1 racing enthusiast to appreciate this, nor do you have to be a traditional ‘granola’ environmentalist to see the advantages of this policy.
I learned a lot about the engineering advances currently under way…the F1 circuit is a huge proving ground for just about any motor engineering or fuel-related applied research.