Katie Sullivan
The thrill of a V6 engine screaming around a track at 200+mph is something that just can’t be replicated anywhere else. F1 is a thrilling sport for spectators and athletes alike, however, what costs are we paying to watch our favourite teams put the pedal to the metal for the title of World Champion?
While some of us struggle to survive without our race weekends from December to March the fact we survive just proves the fact that they aren’t a bare necessity of life. The centre of the sport is the fossil-fuelled cars, a source which has been a key topic up for debate around climate change in recent years. But aside from the cars themselves, how much damage is the calendar itself doing to this planet we call home?
Over the season F1 team members uproot their lives from all over the world to travel a whopping £82,000 miles, across 5 different continents to play their part in pushing their team closer to the title of World Champions – not including travelling home over the summer break or in between races. To put that distance into perspective, you could travel from London, England to Sydney, Australia 7 and a half times! Or around the whole world 3 times! Not only does each individual team member need to get to each race but so do their tools and cars!
These are not easy bits of kit to transport and despite the cars being…cars, they need to be transported by plane to each country and on the road in lorries adding to their already existent carbon footprint. Once in the garage, the delicate V6 engine requires an intense warm-up process before it can go out and perform to its top grade on track, burning even more fuel.
It doesn’t offer the scream of the V6 engine but it does offer speeds in excess of 200mph around tracks all over the globe
One might be thinking, without the carbon emissions of these cars would the sport even exist? Since making its debut on the grounds of the Beijing Olympic Park in 2014, Formula E, a race involving fully electric cars, has gone on to grow into a global sport with a lot less noise and a lot less emissions. It doesn’t offer the scream of the V6 engine but it does offer speeds in excess of 200mph around tracks all over the globe. The cars themselves offer a more sustainable outlook for the world however it does not solve the overwhelming issue of the transportation of these vehicles themselves.
The 2023 F1 Calendar added an additional 10 thousand tonnes of CO2 to the previous 2022 calendar despite the issue of climate change only getting worse as time goes on. The illogical organisation of the F1 calendar sees teams flying from continent to continent with all their kit in tow. Countries can pay up to 55 million US dollars for an annual hosting fee to have the F1 teams tackle their tracks as part of the race for World Champion, therefore explaining why these hefty long-haul flights have become such a normality in the world of motorsport.
However, taking a glance at any F1 calendar from past years one can recognise that racing in Miami in May then jetting off to Monza, Italy the next week then back to the States for Las Vegas in November doesn’t make much sense carbon emission-wise. Even dividing the European races with North American races doesn’t add up in terms of air miles.
The calendar sets off in good spirits following testing in Sakhir, Bahrain, racing commences in the Middle East at the Bahrain Track, followed by Saudi Arabia, however it’s interrupted by the Australian GP then recommences in the Middle East in Azerbaijan to then be dragged over to Miami, USA before kicking off the European Stint in Imola, Italy only to be interrupted by North American Montreal, Canada 2 races later. And so on. Why?
While new locations for the adrenaline-rushing event are being announced and axed each year, each location seems to hold some type of semantic value in its spot on the calendar
In 2009, it was announced that the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, taking place on the 5th of November, would be the season finale, two weeks before the initially planned date of 17th November. Since then, Abu Dhabi has hosted every season finale and it is set to stay that way until at least 2030. While new locations for the adrenaline-rushing event are being announced and axed each year, each location seems to hold some type of semantic value in its spot on the calendar. ‘Formula 1 admitted that due to contractual obligations and concerns about the weather, fixing the calendar won’t be happening overnight.’
While the breathtaking speeds of a Redbull Livery speeding past you on a track may call your attention for the second you can see it, it’s impossible to ignore the damage our F1 calendar is causing to the planet we call home.
Katie Sullivan
Featured image courtesy Clement Delacre of via Unsplash. Image use license found here. No changes were made to this image.
In article image 1 courtesy of @f1 via Instagram.com. No changes were made to this image.
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