Is F1 looking to reduce carbon footprint in the wrong areas?
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Formula 1 is synonymous with high carbon emissions. For some F1 fans, it becomes difficult to reconcile their desire for a cleaner earth with watching F1 racing. Peter Windsor lists ways F1 can greatly reduce its carbon footprint.
The emissions problem is not due to F1 cars
In a YouTube video the F1 journalist reads the comment of a viewer who says that only 0.7 percent of Formula 1's total annual emissions come from the driving cars. Most of the emissions come from all the peripheral vehicles travelling with them around the world. Windsor sees a big area for improvement for the sport: "It just gets bigger and bigger. There are a lot of cool eco-friendly aspects to the race cars and to the ways teams spend their money, but everything around it is actually horrendous."
Therefore, Windsor hopes that F1 will take up the idea of holding more races per circuit. According to the F1 expert, that is a good way to drastically reduce travel time and travel distance, with the emissions involved. In 2020 that happened several times because of COVID-19, in 2021 it immediately decreased. "Personally, I think that's a mistake," Windsor continued. "A race is a race. We don't look down on Russell's performance in Sakhir because it was the second race in Bahrain."
'Ban the motorhomes!'
So Windsor goes along with the estimate that only 0.7 percent of emissions come from cars and sees another possible solution to reduce the carbon footprint. "Ban motorhomes! Or at least those massive, great motorhomes." The Brit suggests that all teams should be allowed to have one allocated truck to take the 'buildings'. Windsor, on the other hand, thinks it won't be possible because the teams will lose a lot of marketing revenue if they are curtailed from bringing such own equipment.