Green racing?

I was keeping an eye on the Aussie F1 Grand Prix and saw something quite odd.

At first I thought that it was a new racing team with something along the lines of a US Army sponsor or some such thing with a weird camo paint scheme. But upon further examination, it appeared that the car was being run by the factory Honda team.

Jonathon Pearce at Samizdata, who got to watch the whole race, noticed it as well and had a few things to say about it.

It is a Honda and apparently the idea is to break with the usual sponsorship of tobacco firms etc and instead “raise awareness about ecological issues”, according to the television commentator. So let me get this right: a F1 car that does more than 200mph and uses a fair amount of petrol – that evil greenhouse effect stuff – is attempting to “raise awareness of ecologicial issues”. Think of how much Co2 is pumped out by all these F1 racing teams from Ferrari, Benetton, McLaren, etc. Think of how much of the stuff is pumped out transporting the drivers, mechanics, press flacks and of course the crowds to places like Melbourne or Monaco. The idea that motorsport has anything to do with saving the planet from doom is preposterous. Has this most red-blooded of sports, once famed for dudes like Ascari, James Hunt or Fangio, become as pussified and guilt-ridden as everything else? F1 cars are supposed to be in bright colours, with emblems of cigarettes and naked women on them, like old WW2 American military aircraft. It is all part of the essential naughtiness involved in driving a car very fast round a track, which if you think about it, is one of the more pointless ways to spend an afternoon, and all the more wonderful for it.

He closes with writing that the Honda guys must be trying to make a joke, though I don’t thenk he’s believing that for a second.

I’ve hung with more than a couple Honda guys and they are pretty much humorless sods. Especially when you’re putting their cars to shame.