Someone’s taking the proverbial here. This is Greenwash to the extreme. Many people think Formula One is one of the most extravagant and polluting sports there is. Some people would not even call it a sport.

Despite its cars doing little more than four miles to the gallon, the Honda Formula One team tried to trump their green credentials yesterday when they announced that their new cars will feature a huge image of the Earth “uncorrupted” by commercial logos.

The Japanese manufacturer described the new look, which will feature on cars driven by Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, as a “call to action” directed at race fans and the public to join Honda’s “commitment to help address environmental issues facing mankind”.

Nick Fry, the team principal, said: “We’re quite aware it’s a potentially contradictory thing to do. But the number of people we can reach is immense.”

Maybe if Formula One is serious about reducing its carbon emissions, it should try racing bicycles instead.

4 Comments

  • Looking at F1s fuel ineconomy, wouldn’t it be cheaper and cause a lot less fuss if instead of using F1 cars in races, we substituted them with SUVs… oh sorry, I forgot, their cornering is pretty poor.

    There’s quite a lot of hoopla in the US about Indy cars running on ethanol this year. That would be more impressive if they’d not been running on a mixture of ethanol and methanol last year.

    While what Honda is going to do looks odd to European eyes, in the US Honda and other Japanese producers are seen as being greener than the Detroit Dinosaurs and seem to be taking market share…

  • “Some people would not even call it a sport.”

    That’s a pig-ignorant cheap shot. The physical demands of racing a Formula One car with the g-forces of a fighter plane for two hours are not to be sniffed at. That’s why the drivers train by running marathons.

    You also seem to have forgotten that F1 has plans to implement ‘greener’ technologies such as heat recovery power over coming seasons. Or perhaps you just didn’t do any research?

  • Yes, Honda’s is a cynical stunt, but in terms of bang for fossil fuel buck, F1 provides enjoyment to millions of people across the world (including some such as me, who refuse to drive on environmental grounds, vote green, get their electricity from ecotricity, etc etc) for in absolute terms, a relatively small cost in fossil fuels.

    I hope that when the internal combustion engine disappears for everyday purposes, it will still be possible to watch these engineering marvels travelling at 200 mph

    Beats watching bicycle races anyway….

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