Dhe Formula 1 management is a little unhappy. They have been circling with the most efficient internal combustion engines for years, but nobody noticed in the heated debate. And so the strategists have made a decision: not only to speed, but also to talk – about the cleanliness of the hybrid drive. So that everyone who accuses this establishment of booze as a sign of its wastefulness will finally be taught better. With a good forty liters of fuel consumption per 100 kilometers in the Grand Prix, efficiency or not, is a pious wish. The image will remain: air polluters.
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It doesn’t have to be. In any case, Sebastian Vettel as an insider recently pressed the tube in a FAZ interview when he criticized the reform backlog in Formula 1, but invoked its potential to be part of solutions in the fight against climate change, instead of, at least in the perception, to remain a problem. Two weeks later, on Monday in the United States, Mercedes presented its vision of future cars called the EQXX and announced a world record: the electric vehicle should cover 1,000 kilometers on a single battery charge. Applied to the combustion engine, that would correspond to a one-liter car.
What does that have to do with Formula 1? The drive department for the Silver Arrows in Brixworth largely developed the battery, half the size, 30 percent lighter. Chassis experts from the eight-time designer world champion at the Brackley site worked on the rear axle suspension and the battery housing, partly made from sugar cane waste and carbon. Several dozen racing engineers were involved.
“We challenged the best of the best (…) to find the best solutions,” said Mercedes. And apparently made great pace with the help of the Formula 1 team. “Working in Formula 1 means we’re used to very fast, ambitious projects,” says Adam Allsopp, Development Director of the Formula 1 Drivetrain Department, in a video. Such projects usually run for five years. It took Mercedes 18 months.
The complex project, if it turns out to be as “groundbreaking” as the group proudly presents, has more to offer than a specific contribution to reducing the impact on the climate. It also seems like a very broad anticipation of what could happen to Formula 1. Complete electrification in the long term. At this point the purists will flinch.
Aren’t you just enjoying the erosion of Formula E, the dead battery series? After BMW and Audi, Mercedes has also dropped out. Because Formula 1 offers what you need to move forward. More freedom in developing tomorrow’s technology. It is determined by a maxim that, whether you want to hear it or not, is in contrast to the image: efficiency – or thrift.
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