Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Power games

2007; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 447; Issue: 7147 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/447900a

1476-4687

Andreas Trabesinger,

Fuel Cells and Related Materials

Can motor racing go green? Andreas Trabesinger asked Max Mosley, head of Formula 1, how he wants the sport to develop energy-efficient technology that will also work in road cars. On the cover, McLaren's sensational rookie Lewis Hamilton leads Kimi Räikkönen's Ferrari in Montreal, en route to the first of his back-to-back wins in North America. Hamilton's chosen sport is hardly 'green', based as it is on carting machinery and personnel all over the world to drive around in circles. But, in the tradition of 'improving the breed' that brought disc brakes into automotive use, there are ambitious plans to recast the formula as a force for technological good. From 2009, new regulations will reduce the environmental impact of the sport, and introduce kinetic energy recovery systems to use energy otherwise wasted during deceleration. Later changes will involve recovering energy lost as heat. The combination of fierce competition, talented technicians and big research budgets should drive the technology forward in ways that may ultimately benefit road cars. Andreas Trabesinger interviews F1's Max Mosley, the man behind the new formula.