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A problem at the heart of Formula One
How can any sport combine fun, spectacle and viewers’ demand for more greenery?
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F1 has made progress on developing carbon-neutral fuel, but does little to clean up the sport.
PHOTO: ST FILE
The Economist
What’s not to love about a billionaires’ party? Formula One, a nine-month annual extravaganza, stages 23 car races in almost as many different countries, scattered across five continents. Millions tune in to watch drivers zoom around in mega-cars powered by noisy petrol engines, before Max Verstappen wins again. The teams often whisk men and machines from one glamorous location to the next by air. All of that involves spewing out plenty of carbon.
As long as viewers or sponsors didn’t care – and for decades, most did not – then the sport could race along unheeded. The trouble is that viewers are starting to want their games not to be guilty pleasures. Sports, increasingly, are expected to be green as well as fun. F1 understands that it needs to change. Liberty Media, its American owner, said in 2019 that the competition would reach net-zero emissions by 2030. Back then, a promise to achieve something more than a decade later probably seemed easy to keep. With the clock ticking, what are the chances?
