Can Formula One ever be green?

"The perfect race car crosses the finish line in first place
and then falls to pieces."

- Ferdinard Porsche

Formula One is the ultimate orgy of technological innovation. Win on Sunday and you'll sell on Monday, so the competition is intense. Until recently, Formula One teams had to put ethics aside; speed is expensive - both financially and environmentally - and oil, alcohol and tobacco companies offered very lucrative sponsorship deals. However, the FIA are starting to make some concessions towards making Grand Prix cleaner but it's going to be a long, long time before the sport event itself could be considered anywhere near sustainable. In a race, fuel consumption is typically around the 75 l/100 km (4 mpg) mark, then there's the team-trucks, motorhomes, helicopters and yachts etc. that make up the F1 entourage. It is this hedonism that makes Formula One so seductive and many would be sad to see it greenwashed.

The teams argue that energy-efficiency innovations developed on the track, gradually see their way into our cars. This may be true to some extent, but it's not exactly the most effective form of green R&D. Honda have realised that with an audience of 600 million viewers, they can bring about positive change now, not just via engineering, but also harnessing the sheer spectacle of the sport.

It was only a few years ago that British American Tobacco side-stepped the growing restrictions on tobacco advertising and decided to build an entire team: 'BAR'. The team battled with the FIA from the beginning, ignoring the rule that both race cars must have the same livery and instead choosing to cover each car in a different cigarette brand livery. They later unified the design by metaphorically slicing the bodies of the two cars in half and sticking them back together so that on one side, it was blue and yellow and on the other it was red, white and black. The rear wing of Jacque Villeneuve's BAR ensured maximum TV exposure for their brands. Unluckily for him it wasn't because he was out in front, the likes of michael schumacher's Ferrari was often just trying to lap him.

In 2005 & '06 , the team suffered from tough bans and was stripped of points. This unlucky strike must have come as quite a relief to the other drivers, who had repeatedly fallen foul of Takuma Sato's aggressive racing style. It seems he took engine supplier, Honda's slogan of dreaming the impossible dream a little too seriously when trying to out-brake rivals. Gradually, the team kicked its nicotine habit and last year, Jenson Button gave the official Honda works team their first victory from 14th on the grid. Honda even made a second team (in honour of Aguri Suzuki) just for Takuma Sato... (and to appease their angry Japanese customers for not renewing Sato's contract).

Now, the former 'bad-boys' of F1 have decided not to display any of their sponsor's logos on their 2007 car , instead advertising the fact that we have only one planet. According to Honda: "At http://www.myearthdream.com/ anyone who wishes, will have the opportunity to have their name on the car, make a pledge to make a lifestyle change to improve the environment and make a donation to an environmental charity [...] each name will form a tiny individual pixel which will help build the image of planet earth on the car. Each name will be visible on the website when you make the pledge or under a microscope on the car." The site launches today.

Video: Nick Fry explains the concept ¦ Read Honda's full press release ¦ F1 goes hybrid in 2009