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- Formula 1 wants its cars to run on sustainable fuels from 2026 onwards.
- While such a process could be expensive, the sport is doing all it can not to ignite unnecessary competition among fuel suppliers.
- Sustainable fuel in F1 can be made available to the public.
Formula 1’s chief technical officer, Pat Symonds, is confident the proposed switch to sustainable fuels will not lead to an expensive arms race between suppliers.
F1 aims to leave fossil fuel behind from 2026 onwards and hopes that competing suppliers will come up with good alternatives for the sport.
A technological breakthrough in this respect may also have a widespread impact, as an environmentally friendly fuel could then be made available for the public.
“We’ve thought about it quite a lot, actually,” said Symonds about the danger of an expensive arms race.
“And right from the start, Aramco has been very involved with advising us on how to formulate these fuels, and indeed have made many candidate fuels for us to test and to understand the sensitivities of various things.
“I think the fundamental answer lies in the fact that we move from a mass flow to an energy flow. If we’d stayed on a mass flow, I think there was every reason, even within the very carefully formulated regulations, to believe that someone may have been able to do that.
“But if you are limited on energy, then in simple terms, it is converting that energy into power that matters. And you won’t run away with things.”
Defining a good fuel
“There are nuances to that. And there’s more to a good fuel than just what its energy content is. There are all sorts of things: it is volatility, it’s the flame speed. There are all sorts of things that define a good fuel,” Symonds added.
“But, if anything, I think what we’ve done and what we’ve really concentrated on is opening up the process and regulating the final content.
“And I think if maybe politicians had done that, when they’re talking about how to decarbonise the world, and let the engineers define the process rather than dictating what that process should be, I think we might be in a better place now.
“The regulations have been very carefully designed, such that we can really promote different methods of producing these fuels. This is a very, very new technology.
“There are many different ways of producing fuels, and no one is yet sure exactly which is the best way. So, we’ve written the rules very carefully to try to promote the competition to produce fuels in different manners. And yet, at the same time, not to produce a fuel that will be a runaway for whoever does it best.”
