Sustainable speed
With Formula 1 motor racing chiefs asking teams to cut fuel usage by 50 percent by 2015, motor sport is under pressure to become more climate-friendly. It’s perhaps why there is increasing interest in a car built from materials which read like a food recipe. Researchers at the University of Warwick have just built the world’s first Formula 3 car built from sustainable and renewable materials. ‘A few months ago,’ says project manager Dr James Meredith, ‘no one was really interested. Motor racing is about going as fast as you can and no one is interested in doing anything environmental, but people are suddenly waking up to the thought that it’s not such a bad idea.’

Cocoa butter
The original eco-friendly car they built a few years ago showcased the work of the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG).  It was so well received they embarked on designing a bigger and better version, aiming to make as many parts as environmentally friendly as possible. ‘We put a diesel engine into the car which allows us to run all sorts of bio-diesels,’ explains Meredith, ‘which we can derive from any fatty material, from used vegetable oil, to waste cocoa butter, to liposuction fat.’

Potato starch mirror
Recycled carbon-fibres are used in the bodywork. Other parts of the car have used recycled bottles and natural fibres like flax, hemp and jute. ‘We’ve got a steering wheel made out of carrot foam,’ says Meredith. ‘If you juice carrots you get left with a pulp, and from that pulp you can extract cellulose fibres which you can use. We used soya bean oil rather than petroleum oil to make the seat foam. Potato starch is now being used to make biodegradable packaging, and we made some wing mirror shells with it. A coating on the radiators which is a catalyst, will convert ozone to oxygen as air passes across it.’ The wiring in the car is also eco-friendly, there’s no PVC in it. ‘Our original intention,’ says Meredith, ‘was to keep its performance as close as possible to a standard Formula 3 car, and we are racing it in October.’ There will be many interested spectators looking at the progress of this car.