Honda announce 'green' F1 car

The Honda Formula One team have split with tradition in a bid to help raise awareness of the environmental issues facing the planet.

For years the livery of F1 cars have been dominated by advertising and sponsors logos, but this season’s RA107’s driven by Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello will simply feature an image of earth.

Via the website, www.myearthdream.com, anyone who wishes will have the opportunity to have their name on the car, pledge to make a lifestyle change to improve the environment or make a donation to an environmental charity.

Under the concept of 'our car is your car', each name will form a tiny individual pixel which will help build the image of earth.

Each name will then be visible on the website when you make the pledge or under a microscope on the car.

Honda team boss Nick Fry said: “Climate change is probably the single biggest issue facing the global community and F1 is not immune from it.

“On the contrary, we believe that F1 with its huge global profile and cutting edge technology can play an important role in not only highlighting the issues, but also playing our part in developing solutions.

“In addition, the FIA recognises the opportunity for F1 to showcase innovative technologies for the benefit of society for the long term. For example, by 2009, devices for energy recovery will be in place on the cars.

“So we at Honda F1 are proud to dedicate our car to the environmental challenge. We believe practical solutions can stem directly from engineers working on our F1 programme.

“They are working harder than ever to achieve our dreams and win the world championship, while embracing and underscoring Honda’s environmental ethos. First and foremost, we are a race team and F1 is very much a team sport.

“We achieve our racing objectives only by working together, and parallels can be drawn with the way that we must all join together to address the environmental challenge. We hope that in raising awareness and highlighting the issues we will encourage members of the public to come together and help take on the challenge of climate change.”