Nico Rosberg: Electric Motorsport Can Change The World For The Better

Sustainability Nico Rosberg: Electric Motorsport Can Change The World For The Better James Morris Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I write about the rapidly growing world of electric vehicles Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories. Got it! Oct 15, 2022, 10:38am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Amidst all the drama surrounding Red Bull being found guilty of breaking Formula 1’s budget cap, it’s easy to forget that motorsport can do a lot of good for the world too.

Luckily, an increasing number of F1 stars are realizing the influence they can have. Lewis Hamilton has many irons in the fire promoting racial and sexual equality, and Sebastian Vettel has been speaking out consistently about climate change. But one of the most active is former F1 champion Nico Rosberg, an early investor in Formula E and Extreme E team owner.

As the final Extreme E racing weekend in November nears, I talked to him about the impact electric motorsport can have on the world. Nico Rosberg and Johan Kristoffersson (SWE), Rosberg X Racing Motorsport Images Last time I spoke to Rosberg was in the run up to the 2021 London Formula E race weekend , where we discussed how governments were not doing enough to aid electrification. This time, we focused on how electric motorsport can bring important issues to the fore for public discourse.

Extreme E is the poster child of this strategy, with Rosberg’s RXR team leading the charge. His team won the championship in 2021, and were on course for another win in Chile until technical issues kept them out of the final . “The car never broke down up until the last race,” says Rosberg.

“But that’s just the bad luck that can happen. ” Rosberg says his team has implemented F1-style strategies that have enabled it to string together so many successes in Extreme E. However, although Extreme E rekindles the historical rivalry with Lewis Hamilton via the latter’s X44 Extreme E team, their involvement is due to what Extreme E represents.

“We’re all involved because of the social causes that are at the center of it. That’s why Lewis Hamilton is involved. That’s why I’m involved.

If it wasn’t for these causes, we would not be there. The racing is great and very exciting, but it’s the social causes that make it unique. It’s not only environmental, but also about equality.

” RXR Extreme E team’s Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky is considered the fastest female driver on the . . .

[+] circuit right now. (Photo by Sam Bagnall / LAT Images) Sam Bagnall / LAT Images Extreme E is unique in its equal opportunity for female drivers, with every team made up of one male and one female driver. World Rallycross also has some very competent female drivers, such as Klara Andersson, who crossed over into Extreme E for the last race.

World Rallycross also went electric for its main series earlier this year . To underline this drive towards equality, Rosberg has announced a mentoring scheme to coincide with International Day of the Girl. Aimed at girls aged 13-18 with a successful track record in karting, the scheme will include coaching from Rosberg and Extreme E driver Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky.

Applicants can send a letter of motivation to info@rosbergxracing. com with winners announced on October 31 st . “I’m a girl dad too – I have two daughters – so it’s something that is very dear to me,” says Rosberg.

MORE FOR YOU Juan Soto Contract Rejection Could Make Orioles A Better Buy Than Nationals 8 Ways Leaders Can Help Their Teams Find Joy At Work ‘Edward Hopper’s New York’ At The Whitney Magnifies The Master’s Six Decades In His Beloved City Sustainability is the key message from electric motorsport, however. “The whole concept is built on getting a sports documentary on one of the streaming platforms,” says Rosberg. This was partially achieved earlier in 2022 with a series on Amazon Prime called Race for the Planet .

However, it wasn’t globally available, and Rosberg argues that “it’s only a first step and we need to do way more of that. ” He thinks a race in the US would help, as well as more races in the UK and Germany (the UK hosted the final weekend of the 2021 season). “There are also environmental and equality issues in Europe.

It’s not only in the far away extreme locations. We had an incredibly big drought and Germany had the biggest floods in its history. All these things happened recently, so I think that would be important to raise more visibility for the championship.

” Extreme E racing is fast and furious, despite the cars looking like tanks. Motorsport Images Although Extreme E is SUV racing, the cars are still exciting to drive, after all. “It looks like a tank from the outside, but it’s much more agile than it looks.

It’s super fun to drive with a lot of power. It’s a great racing car, and it allows for some awesome battles on track. And of course, what I like is the fact that it’s electric.

We still have the duty to make electric cars cool for the masses. ” Formula E will have an increasingly important role to play here as well. “With the Gen3 car coming, it’s all about technology.

What’s so cool about the Gen3 is that there are no rear disc brakes anymore. All the braking is done by the engine harvesting energy on the back. And that’s an amazing development.

Every road car should be like that in the very near future, even on the front brakes. ” On the World Rallycross switch to electric, Rosberg adds: “It’s awesome that they’ve made the switch because we all need to convert now to sustainable mobility. I’ve been looking at the racing.

It’s just as good as always. They just need a little bit more depth of the field, so I think it’s going to be important for them. ” World RX has gone all-electric in 2022 as well.

James Morris However, Rosberg doesn’t see Formula One going electric anytime soon, and that could be a problem for the continued relevance of the series. “F1 is completely committed to sticking with hybrid engines and synthetic fuels. That’s their way.

For F1, that is great because it’s positioning them in a CO2 neutral way. However, F1 also needs to stay relevant technologically and there I’m not sure it is so obvious. Synthetic fuels will be relevant for aviation and some other areas of mobility, but I’m not sure about cars.

So let’s see if F1 manages to stay technologically relevant with the synthetic fuel approach. At the moment, it doesn’t look like synthetic fuels will be able to scale out because of the cost and the scarcity of renewable energy. In any case, for F1, the biggest priority is to go CO2 neutral and synthetic fuels are a good way for that.

” Ultimately, however, Rosberg is positive about the impact all-electric motorsport is having. “I still feel optimistic because I see how much attention it is getting everywhere; how other sports are following the lead of Extreme E,” he says. “F1 is getting more strongly committed to sustainability.

Even in soccer, we’re seeing stadiums getting loaded up with batteries and solar to charge the matches with renewable energy. We’re leading the way and showing how it can be done with Extreme E. I remain optimistic also because now you can have some of the greatest business success potential.

This is where it becomes really interesting, when you can make money on this sustainability trend now as well. That’s only going to accelerate the interest even more. Not only can you save our future and save the planet, but you can also make money.

” The combination of sporting success and strong impact has permeated Rosberg’s strategy with RXR. “As well as being world champions in the racing, we want to be winners in terms of our sustainability projects,” he says. “Our team has its own #DrivenByPurpose campaign.

We’re all going back to Sardinia again in December. Right next to the track where we race in Sardinia were the biggest forest fires in the history of Sardinia, 20,000 hectares. We are launching a big reforestation there, planting 3,000 trees as a first step.

We’re just as much focused on winning as on having a positive impact and using this race team as a platform for that. ” Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn . Check out my website .

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