With lot many car manufacturing companies going ga ga with enviro-friendly alternates, the fever would soon take a toll of conventional F1 racing cars. Racing cars exhaust emission is much more than the normal commuting cars. In my opinion, the investment to build an eco-friendly F1 racing car would be worth more than investing to build a traditional engine to be fuelled by conventional means.
Companies like Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Honda and Toyota that have been spending about $200 million per year on fuelling their racing cars, have finally come in terms with reality and banned further expenditure on fossil fuels. Instead, they are planning to resort to more eco-friendly means such as hybrid–technology.
Paris based Federation Internationale de l’Automobile is yet another organization that favours “F1 cars go green” idea. FIA’s president, Max Mosley, is determined to make F1 cars more energy-efficient. “The sport is moving away from the technology of the 20th century to the technology of the 21st. It is only by doing that that we can prevent Formula 1 starting to be labeled as a dinosaur.” Commented Max Mosley. FIA’s main motive is to reduce the carbon dioxide emission that adds on to the green-house effect. According to one estimate, Honda has spent $250 million on F1’s engine development in 2006 to which Max comments that spending even a fraction of such amounts to develop hybrid and alternative-fuel technology would bring “the most spectacular leaps.”
While Alan Mercer of Energy Efficient Motorsport feels that even racing cars have a role to play in exhibiting what they can achieve by resorting to alternatives, Kinetic-energy recovery systems is to make their eco-friendly debut in 2009. their design is expected to generate as much as 80 horsepower without burning an additional drop of fuel.
The Indy Racing League is already using ethanol alternative although I don’t think ethanol can replace fossil fuel’s efficiency.
The intention of these top companies to go green looks like a good sign for a cleaner environment. However, racing cars, inevitably requiring high speed engine, I doubt if the alternate bio fuels would be in par with the fossil fuels. Hybrid cells and hydrogen fuel cells may be better suited for racing cars or even better than the conventional fuel as has been demonstrated by Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999 that set a world record hitting a speed of 207.279 mph.
via : Wired
