GreenFleet

It is well acknowledged that the automotive industry is a large contributor to global warming. But the world’s first sustainable F3 racing car, made almost entirely from sustainable and renewable materials, demonstrates how cars do not need to cause major harm to the environment. Rather than just focusing on engine emissions, the F3 project takes a whole-car approach, so that almost everything – from the fuel and body, right down to the lubricants – have been modified to reduce their impact on the environment.
 
Meeting F3 standards
Created by the Warwick Manufacturing Group, part of the University of Warwick, the car meets all formula three racing standards. It’s the right weight and shape, can reach speeds of up to 147mph and has all the correct safety requirements in place. But that’s where the similarities end. The car operates on a diesel engine, which has never been done before and the body and its parts are made from sustainable and renewable materials, such as potato starch and carrot resin – unheard of in the world of motor sport. Surely such an unusual approach to car manufacturing met some challenges?
    
“The biggest individual challenge we had in engineering terms was packaging up the car to run on a diesel engine,” Dr Kerry Kirwan explained. “Diesel engines tend to be bigger than petrol engines, so we had to redesign a lot of parts to fit into the confined space we had. And because we used fuels that had never been tried before, we had to programme the engine from scratch and redesign certain components to respond to the diesel.”
    
Creating the car’s body posed other challenges. The team was working with natural materials that had never been used in such an extreme environment, including carrot fibre, hemp and castor oil resins. “We had to tap into the expertise of individuals who traditionally make certain car parts. But we gave them natural materials like flax to work with rather than the traditional carbon fibre, which threw up a whole set of challenges. With a few alterations however and a lot of learning, we were able to adapt the new material to meet our needs and were very pleased with their performance,” Kirwan explained.

Fueling the car
The car runs on biodiesel derived from a range of natural products, such the waste from chocolate and vegetable oil, and more recently beef and salmon fat. “We’re trying lots of different alternatives to find out how different fat profiles affect the performance of the vehicle. Fueling the car is an ongoing process and we will be trying lots of different varieties of biodiesel in the next coming months.”
    
The one element of the car that hasn’t been modified to make it green is the crash structure. Kirwan explains: “We were using materials, fuels and lubricants that have never been tested in such extreme environments so we had to take a pragmatic view on what we can do versus what we should do. That said, now we’re quite confident that we can approach some of the more critical structures to make them greener.”

Mainstream automotive
So why was a race car chosen over mainstream automotive? “Some of the technologies could feasibly be used in the mainstream car industry,” kirwan explained. But the problem for our project is that mainstream automotive is too risk adverse. Once a car is designed and starts being built it doesn’t change for five to seven years. It is therefore a lot more difficult to bring in new technologies. Motor sport is different because it has a greater culture of innovation and cars are constantly modified.”
    
“That said, we have worked with many of the major mainstream manufacturers and some of the technologies we used actually came from them, such as the catalyst on the radiator, which comes from BASF and is fitted to Volvo cars.”

Competitive racing
After being given the go-ahead to compete competitively in October, the team came up against an obstacle which meant they could not race. Kirwan explains: “The MSA were happy for the car to race on the proviso that everyone entered sign a document. But one person did not. It did not matter that that person was not present or eligible to race, we were still told we could not race based on that one person not signing. We believe it was a misinterpretation of the rules.”
    
So will the race be re-scheduled? “We will engage with various law makers to see how we can avoid this in the future,” said Kirwan. “I know we don’t necessarily tick all the right boxes but at the end of the day it’s about how much the law makers want to promote innovation in motor sport.”
    
The car may not be able to race competitively yet but it has won over the hearts and minds of the public. “We took the car to a European grand prix where it was constantly mobbed. It was sitting next to F1 cars but the public weren’t interested in them. The car’s got a persona of its own and has got people well and truly hooked,” explains Kirwan.
    
“We wanted to get people and industry thinking about green issues in a way that wasn’t prescriptive or boring. We wanted to show that being green can be sexy, fast and fun. And with the F3 car, I think we’ve achieved that.”