Kallenius: F1 not something of the past, it’s something of the future

The sport launched a plan last year to become carbon neutral by 2030, with zero net carbon hybrid power units and low carbon fuels a focus moving forward.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re going in line with the Paris agreement step by step towards the decarbonised world,” he said, as reported by RaceFans. “I was in Formula 1 when we developed the first [Kinetic Energy Recovery] system.

"I was running HPP in Brixworth and we were talking to innovative companies for battery technologies. That very first hybrid system, the power of that compared to the weight, compared to what we could do with the road car side, was mindboggling. Here we are 10 years later and we have moved that on by factors and factors."

“Research into lower-carbon fuels or no-carbon fuels, synthetic fuels, will also play a role,” Kallenius added. “Because even if we go electric soon – and we will have a very large part of our fleet all-electric in 2030 and beyond – there will be a car parc of hundreds of millions, a couple of billion vehicles, that we also need to work on decarbonisation.

“Formula 1 can play a role in experimenting with lower carbon fuels. So technologically, it’s very relevant. It’s not something of the past, it’s something of the future.”

His comments come after Bernie Ecclestone called on the sport to go back to normally aspirated V8 engines and stop looking towards road relevance.

"I’ll be in trouble for this, but let’s dig out all the old normally aspirated engines,” he said. “Everybody’s got them, the costs go right down, the noise will be back, and we can use them for five years while we sort out an engine for the future.

“Formula 1 doesn’t have to be relevant to the car industry. People forget, Formula 1 is in the entertainment business and when you stop entertaining you haven’t got a business."