What Role will Sustainable Fuels have in Formula 1's Future?

The fuels known as Advanced Sustainable Fuel were made in collaboration with Aramco and possess the same chemical traits as conventional fuels, while reducing the overall CO2 emissions produced in the process.

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FIA's Director of Single Seaters, Nikolas Tombazis, has been tracking the performance of the fuels and assessing how relevant the data from F2 and F3 can be in predicting their impact on F1 next season.

“Making sure the performance is fairly similar in Formula 2 is an important first step," Tombazis said.

"The fact that the fuel is drop-in fuel is important. In addition, there are some relatively minor aspects related to reliability, fuel tanks and stuff like that, maybe there's some small chemical differences."

“It's important to check to make sure we don't have any issues on the cars. These lessons Formula 2 are learning, I think, are taken note of for Formula 1. So that's important.”

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Recent findings indicate that the fuels have not resulted in a drop in performance compared to past fuels.

The Aramco fuels will not be exactly what is used next year; instead, they will be fuels developed by each team and their technical partners.

Still, all indications suggest that the fuel is effective and should enable the sport of F1 to progress toward greater sustainability.

“It’s quite an interesting and complicated process. Of course, in Formula 1, we are delighted in the FIA there’s an opening grant from Formula 2 with Aramco and we’re very respectful of this process," Tombazis said.

“That's the additional challenge in Formula 1, and I think it's very useful that these initial steps taken in the lower categories. I think we'll complete the picture next year when Formula 1 makes this big step.”

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