Pat Symonds: Regulations will prevent expensive arms race for sustainable F1 fuel

Formula One is aiming to leave fossil fuel behind from 2026 onwards and hopes that competing suppliers will in the meantime come up with good alternatives for the sport.

A technological breakthrough in this respect may also have a widespread impact, as an environmentally friendly fuel could then be made available for the public.

"We've thought about it quite a lot, actually," said Symonds about the danger of an expensive arms race.

"And right from the start, Aramco has been very involved with advising us on how to formulate these fuels, and indeed have made many candidate fuels for us to test and to understand the sensitivities of various things.

"I think the fundamental answer lies in the fact that we move from a mass flow to an energy flow. If we'd stayed on a mass flow, I think there was every reason, even within the very carefully formulated regulations, to believe that someone may have been able to do that.

"But if you are limited on energy, then in simple terms it is converting that energy into power that matters. And you won't run away with things.

"There are nuances to that. And there's more to a good fuel than just what its energy content is. There are all sorts of things: it is volatility, it's the flame speed. There are all sorts of things that define a good fuel.

"But, if anything, I think what we've done and what we've really concentrated on is opening up the process, and regulating the final content.

"And I think if maybe politicians had done that, when they're talking about how to decarbonise the world, and let the engineers define the process rather than dictating what that process should be, I think we might be in a better place now.

"The regulations have been very carefully designed, such that we can really promote different methods of producing these fuels. This is a very, very new technology.

"There are many different ways of producing fuels, and no one is yet sure exactly, which is the best way. So we've written the rules very carefully to try to promote the competition to produce fuels in different manners. And yet, at the same time, not to produce a fuel that will be a runaway for whoever does it best."