Opinion: Will The Real Formula One Please Stand Up

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Opinion: Will The Real Formula One Please Stand Up

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Motor Racing, Formula One in particular, has a long history of innovation. That’s a good thing given that no business, sport or government can remain steady state. You either grow or you become irrelevant and die. The technology used in Formula One is still at the very top of the heap when it comes to building and competing with automobiles.

The question that no one seems capable, or willing, to answer is: Why does Formula One have to be the poster child for green technology? The only plausible answer is the manufacturers. Collectively they pump several billion dollars a year into the global sport. They desperately want their consumer base, governments and environmentalists to approve of their salable products. What better place to showcase it than Formula One. Herein lies the problem.

On the one hand Formula One has always been a technology driven sport. The counter to this fact is that the planet, its natural resources or mankind will not be saved by F1 technology. Virtually every innovation in the last decade in Formula One isn’t an innovation at all. It’s been done before, so in that sense at least they’re being responsible by recycling something. Barring that, there’s nothing new under the Sun. Not Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems, not traction control, not the computers needed to run the cars. None are new.

Ceramic pistons, engine blocks or any other type of materials deemed to be exotic were banned a long time ago. Those forays into technology were innovative but incredibly expensive, thus furthering the dilemma that the smaller teams couldn’t keep up and creating a microcosmic viewing window into the world -the haves and the have not’s. There was no real choice but take that regulatory tact in order to keep a full field of Grand Prix cars.

Nothing has changed except the technology. Instead of being saddled with creating super cooled ceramic semi-conductor’s to help the cars levitate, Formula One has strapped the teams with green technology. It has been taken from the exciting and sublime to the ridiculous and absurd. Green technology is incredibly expensive and it does not transfer down to passenger cars despite the proclamations of the champion of world peace, environmental cleanliness and harmony, Jean Todt. Although, let’s not leave Max Mosley out of the mix, after all, he does love a good show.

Every single bit of green technology that is being employed by Formula One has been done before, in some cases a hundred years before. The manufacturers are using Formula One as a teaser pony to appease the governments where their cars are made as well as the global community of environmentalists that are calmed, if only temporarily, by showcasing ways to “Go Green”.

Pushing buttons to pass, or not pass, floating the horrific thought of million dollar golf carts humming down pit lane and reducing the emissions of Grand Prix cars borders on insanity. More money and carbon emission is spent flying just one of F1’s fleet of transport aircraft for an hour than is spent in an entire season of racing Formula One cars. What are they thinking? Money is what they’re thinking, it’s very green.

The manufacturers receive incentives both in subsidies and in tax breaks for making the effort to promote green technology, which in turn is used to fund the their Formula One efforts to impress a Global audience.

In my opinion, the manufacturers should let the market dictate the technology. Green technology used in Formula One isn’t new and it isn’t necessarily the best place to showcase it. Were Formula One the best arena in which to make the case for green, the budgets would be much higher than they are now and would be spread around to smaller teams without hesitation, courtesy of the governments where the manufacturers are located.

Bernie Eccelstone’s system of wringing cash out of governments to put on Grand Prix shows would be in full swing as a method for funding the F1 green efforts. If you’re reading an opinion about Formula One then you are no doubt intelligent enough to have noticed that the Global economy is teetering on the brink of disaster. Someone, please tell me how forcing the teams to run their engines on bat guano is going to save money or improve the human condition. It hasn’t so far.

The idea of weaning automobiles and manufacturing off of fossil fuels and onto more energy efficient technology is a noble one. Unfortunately it will take decades to achieve, particularly with China, India and many other emerging economies ignoring the initiative. It’s good to start the process and continue it with purpose, but take one trip to a large city in South America or India and tell me how it’s working out so far.

Forcing Formula One to adopt these technologies is nothing more than a marketing effort that won’t change a thing, except push the already strained budgets of the F1 field to the brink. Let the Formula One product evolve the way it should. Build the fastest, most reliable car with the technology that is allowed.

Shut up- it’s Formula One.

http://motorsportsunplugged.com/f1/?p=530