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Formula 1 introduces fuel efficiency as a competitive performance differentiator!

The Honda Formula 1 Team

or "What does this website have to do with that Earth Dreams race car?"

The short answer is absolutely nothing. For those of you wondering "why would it have", and as a large segment of our target audience probably thinks resource hungry international motorsport is obscene this could be the majority of our readers it's probably worth explaining why we felt the need to create this page. Essentially this is here to inform those petrolheads that might stumble across this site by accident that they are probably in the wrong place. However if this is you then you might want to have a look around anyway.

So why the confusion?

In 2007 the Honda Formula 1 team decided to shun convention and run their car in the global FIA F1 championship without sponsors, instead painting a picture of the world over the machine driven by Jensen Button and Rubens Barrichello. This was tied to something they were calling a "unique positive marketing intiative" which attempted to gain revenue not through courting a small number of high-paying corporates but via "pledges" gained through a poorly executed million-dollar-pixel-alike website with a strong environmental message.

The cynical amongst you might wonder what place competitor Formula 1 has telling us about the environment and you may deduce that it was an attempt to raise revenue by jumping on a climate change bandwagon.

Let's examine the facts:

Formula 1 cars burn a lot of fuel during a race.
The qualifying procedure includes a mandatory 20 minute fuel burning phase for the top 10 cars (although you could argue that Honda did their bit here by never making it to the top 10. Way to save the planet!).
Formula 1 teams cart huge amounts of heavy equipment and personnel all over the world by air.
Many F1 teams via sponsorship promote the cause of morally dubious organisations - from manufacturers of gas guzzlers to petrol companies via defence companies (read: arms dealers) to (despite the changes to the law) tobacco companies.

So what do we think? An attempt to use the global platform that is F1 to raise awareness of climate issues or an attempt to raise additional revenue through a micro-payment model using the world wide web. Only Honda's marketing people can answer that, we've drawn our conclusions and you can draw your own.

Assuming for a minute the latter is true then someone got thier sums wrong. Honda pledged over $1million for environmental causes but their online execution was poor and they only raised something like $90,000 from their Earth Dreams website. The financial cost to the company must have been huge, not only were they running sponsor-less, but the influx of online revenue failed to materialise and thier disasterous on track performance would have left them lacking prize money. It's perhaps telling that this years challenger has a lot more white space on the livery - could these be spaces for traditional corporate sponsor logos?

So what about Formula 1 and the environment?

This is a good question. Historically Formula 1, the pinnacle of motorsport, has pioneered technologies particularly in the safety field that have made thier way into modern road cars. There is no reason why, given the correct incentives, environmental technology couldn't find development in the sport. If for example the rules still forbade tyre changes during a race it would obviously be beneficial to ensure that cars didn't have to stop for fuel either which would lead to advances in fuel economy. Unfortunately the rules on the car design are now so tight that this type of thing will not happen. There is some light on the horizon with the introduction of Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) in a year or two's time which could feasibly lead to more economical technology for road cars but with industry still focussing on the internal combustion engine it could be too little too late. I mean it's not like they are aiding the cause of the electric car now is it?

Pip pip tally hooo