Joe Portlock – Formula 1/Formula Motorsport Limited via Getty Images
The 2023 Formula 1 season kicks off this weekend with the first race of the year, the Bahrain Grand Prix. His three days of pre-season testing took place last week, with Fernando Alonso and Aston. suggests that there are still machines that can win.
But today’s interesting news comes from the lower formulas where young drivers grind their teeth: F2 and F3. Today, the series announced that they will be transitioning to sustainable fuels starting this season.
As previously detailed, F1 is set to move to carbon-neutral petrol in 2026, but as a single-make formula with a single fuel supplier (in this case Aramco), F2 and F3 are even more daring. may try
“We decided to push for something a little more extreme,” said F2 and F3 technical director Didier Perrin. We can impose the type of fuel we need on the , so we decided to target 2027 to make it not only sustainable, but sustainable with carbon: dioxide captured from the atmosphere.” said Perrin.
This year, F2 and F3 will race using blends with 55% sustainable petrol. That is, hydrogen is produced by electrolysis of hydrogen from wind or solar power, using carbon from non-food plants and waste. For context, there will be 14 F2 races and 10 F3 races this year, using about 80,000 gallons (300,000 L) of fuel in between.
However, from 2025, the two series will transition to a blend containing 55% gasoline made by recovering carbon directly from the air. And by 2027, both series will be raced entirely on 100% sustainable carbon-recovery gasoline.
According to Aramco CTO Ahmad Al-Khowaiter, it is technically possible to capture carbon directly from the atmosphere, but it is currently expensive because gas makes up only 0.04% of the air we breathe. It’s a process. $400 to $800 per tonne of carbon. This equates to $200-300 per barrel of oil.
“But costs are dropping dramatically and what we’ve seen with wind and solar is that once deployed, the technologies have a learning curve and their costs are much more reasonable and practical. We expect it to come down to a reasonable cost,” said Al-Khowaiter. Aramco is currently building two synthetic fuel pilot plants. Another location in Saudi Arabia that will be the main source of petrol for F2 and F3.
